Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Neo-Liberalism and the Alpha Male

One profound and one consoling point from Martin Wolf's column in the FT this morning.
Profound: '...the financial system is a subsidiary of the state.' 
Neo-liberalism foundered long ago because of its failure to accept this obvious truth.
Consoling:  'A more fundamental lesson still concerns the way the financial system works. Outsiders were already aware it was a black box. But they were prepared to assume that those inside it at least knew what was going on. This can hardly be true now.'
The 'smartest guys in the room' always turn out to be the thickest. Treat the Alpha Male as you would an incontinent child.

11 comments:

  1. I have taken this tip to heart - I wonder how I can apply it in real life?

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  2. Quite right!
    This applies a fortiori to barristers (and solicitors) as I know from long experience. The more alpha maleish they appear the more childish they are inside. But it doesn't only apply to men - there are lots of alpha women in the system who are just as silly but it takes more out of them to keep up the pretence.
    But it didn't take Mr Wolf to tell us that (or you Mr Appleyard) unless the cultural elite has to be brought back to reality from time to time.

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  3. What's going on with your fonts, Bryan? Doing crazy things in IE7.

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  4. It should be fixed now, Johnny, it was something to do with cutting and pasting from the FT site.

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  5. Economic fundamentalism basically - Wikipedia is about right. Tended to be very anti-state so overlooked the need for a very strong state to sustain markets.

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  6. Best portrait of a (power-mad) alpha female ever is Tilda Swinton's lawyer character in "Michael Clayton." She really deserved that academy award!

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  7. True, Susan, and a very good film - not as appreciated as it should have been.

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  8. They may talk shite, these alpha male types, but when their shite hits the fan, they're not the ones left out of pocket.

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  9. Thanks for the explanation, Bryan. Doesn't affect a 19th-century liberal like me, I guess.

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