Every time I hear the word ‘bureaucrat' used to make a point for or
against government's role in the economy, I cringe. I see this label as
unfair and dehumanizing.
I grew up in Washington , D.C. where my parents and their friends
rose through the ranks of government, often to the very managerial
positions which are being used to characterize government employees as
bureaucrats. So I have a lot of insight into what goes on in and around
Washington that affects the decisions made by these so-called
bureaucrats.
I bring this up because of my recent post "Why you won't hear me using the word bankster"
in which I talked about a similar rhetorical tool used to label
bankers. I see these labels as cheap, underhanded tactics meant to
elicit an emotional response rather than a logical one and bias the
reader against one's preferred whipping boy. It is akin to invoking
Adolf Hitler as an analogy in any debate – something sure to elicit a
reptilian response instead of a well-reasoned one.
The question I was actually looking to have answered with the
bankster post was more of a philosophical one: should we assign
collective guilt when we see ‘moral' or system-wide failures of the
sort we have just witnessed in the financial services industry? It is
the sort of question that I am asking myself due to the five recent
posts here related to greed and morality in our capitalist system.
Here are the questions I have been asking myself: Is "individual
greed but collective progress" the underpinnings of laissez-faire
ideology? Is greed ever good? Are bankers greedy? If so, should
government cap their pay or is that a violation of their liberty? Is
market failure a sign of collective guilt?
I think these are fundamental philosophical, political, even moral
questions that cannot be divorced from the conversation about economics
and markets.
