|
what it's a distraction from is easy: the brouhaha about the bonuses is a version of the "bad apples" theory.
aig is interesting in that it marked the point where even within the one-dimensional world of mass media coverage of capitalism, that shangri-la, that a frame problem surfaced--so wait, yer tellin me that a downturn in the amurican real estate market effects the transnational trafficking in "mortgage backed securities" (think of it as a traffic in holes, kinda in the way the beatles talked about with reference to albert hall in "a day in the life") effects global capital flows? so there is no "american economy" that's not intertwined with the global economy?
this triggers other problems, really quite basic ones, which have to do with the extent to which people think in terms of objects and the extent to which televisual presentation of "reality" reinforces thinking in terms of objects...a corporation is a bounded entity, a thing: an economy is a bounded entity, a thing. a nation-state is a bounded entity, so a thing...
but hey, why think about that when you can point to a group of mostly anonymous individuals (things) who cause the problems because of an inward defect ("greed") and who represent in that inward defect the kind of attribute that can be purged from the existing system and restore it to rationality, because we all know, following the "bad apple" theory, that the existing order is legitimate because it exists, no matter what it is, and that problems are caused by distortions introduced by Bad People--so there are not and cannot be system problems, basic problems...
it'd be funny if the game that was being played did not have such high stakes.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|