I’ve argued with various friends on the issue of the liberal media; on one hand, the national media does – obviously and blatantly – embody the values of the upper-middle-class, urban people who staff it; but on the other it has a certain – attraction – to the current order that makes it more a voice of the establishment (which happens to be liberal) than one attached to liberal principles.
It’s hot enough in Los Angeles this week that random strangers are bursting into flame as they walk along the sidewalks, which makes motorcycling unattractive, and riding in air-conditioned minivans quite attractive to me (TG sniffs that I’m a wimp). So I drove to a lunch meeting and listened to KPCC, the local non-KCRW progressive Pacifica station as I headed down the 405.They were rebroadcasting an interview with Michael Kinsley, now the opinion & editorial editor of the Los Angeles Times; he gave a Q & A with Larry Mantle as a part of the Zocalo series at the LA Central Library (wonder if Patterico went…).
Listen to the whole thing (RealPlayer).
But here’s a telling quote (go to 21:32):
“I don’t think we should subsidize small businesses. Small businesses are owned by people who are generally wealthier than the people who own big businesses. Big businesses are owned by pension funds for working people, by and large.”
Not only is he profoundly wrong on the facts (I’ll go dig around a bit), and worse, wrong in terms of where jobs and innovation are created, but his mad love for the status quo just shines though that phrase.
And as a basis for criticism of the Democratic Party – which is accused of being in thrall to certain groups in Big Business that’s willing to buy off blocks of votes of ‘working people’, and so being an unholy alliance between the media companies and poverty pimps – it just shines.
Well, Kinsley is deranged, I think we all know that by now. Mantle hosts an excellent show, btw, on KPCC, 89.3, broadcasting out of Pasadena, an NPR affiliate, not Pacifica.
Will
Yeah all those convenience store owners are secretly plutocrats. Who knew?
Geez, this guy doesn’t sound very liberal to me. More like an upper class snot putting on airs. But I guess that’s your point.
Me want Kinsley, not some lame-oid link to the “Lessons Of Terror”, by Caleb Carr!
Do you really think subsidizing small businesses is a great idea? I haven’t heard the interview, but Kinsley is in general a caustic opponent of government subsidies in general, both for big and small businesses, and often for individuals as well.
See his classic Agenda for Victory in the wake of 9/11:
and off-topic, you were flat out wrong in interpreting Yglesias’s post. I knew exactly what he was getting at: Before the Chechyans turned terrorist, one could with some justification call the Chechyans victims and the Russians victimizers, and call on the Russians to make concessions. But after the terrorist attacks, the Russians cannot give ground even on *just and legitimate* Chechyan demands, for fear of it looking like they were caving to terrorism.
i.e. Russia must continue with its unjust, evil oppression of Chechnya until such time as the Chechyan populace and mainstream leadership renounces terrorism. But the Chechyans, in all probability, will not renounce terrorism until the Russians appear to give some ground on their oppressive, violent occupation. . .
Though Yitzhak Rabin did seem to put forward a different, more noble ideal when he said “We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace”. That seems to imply one should cut good faith, just, deals with your adversary even as the terrorism continues.
It’s perhaps worth mentioning that when 22 British
policemen were burned alive by an irate Indian mob in the early 20’s, Gandhi halted the independence movement for 6 years, completely killing the momentum and probably delaying India’s independence for a while. There was plenty of terrorism by Indian nationalists against the British, and some of those terrorists are today revered heroes in India. But if terrorism had become a mainstream tool legitimised by mainstream Indian leaders, the British might still be occupying India, not wanting to stay but unwilling to leave.
>>”I don’t think we should subsidize small businesses. Small businesses are owned by people who are generally wealthier than the people who own big businesses. Big businesses are owned by pension funds for working people, by and large.”
Big businesses may be “owned” in the main by pension funds and large masses of small shareholders, but they are CONTROLLED by small groups of very, very rich people.
IMHO most small stockholders in large businesses are suckers. They have insufficient leverage to keep their profits from being diverted into the salaries of management.
I’m against the goverment robbing Peter to Paul any unearned, unpaid for subsidy whether “Paul” is a business (large, small, or medium), individual (rich, poor, or middle class), or group (profit or nonprofit). People ought to be able to keep more of their own money via lower taxes and less regulation rather than being able to use the force of government to steal someone else’s.
Doooh (on the link)…fixing it now. I’m working on a piece on Carr and the cut-and-paste part of my brain got confused.
Re Yglesias: the issue I have is his unqualified assertion that the only solution is to grant concessions. (as with Pfaff)
There’s an interesting question as to whether it is fruitful to have substantive negotations with terrorist groups – as opposed to negotiating with other groups that may share the same ends, but not a similar attachment to means.
A.L.
You said: “but on the other it has a certain – attraction – to the current order that makes it more a voice of the establishment (which happens to be liberal) than one attached to liberal principles.”
I guess this phrasing is confusing me. Could you clarify this for me?
I think that media is liberal in that journalism school grads are flowing from quite liberal institutions, for sure. Media is liberal in general in that they by definition take a questioning stance against everything, including authority. There are also studies done on journalists which show they are overwhelmingly liberal in their personal beliefs and tend to hang out with people who think like they do on most issues, which does not necessarily mean that they can’t be fair or objective. But on really emotional issues like abortion, the bias can come through quite clearly. One gets the impression that certain newsroom cultures simply won’t tolerate dissention on certain issues.
Media is conservative in that it is money driven and therefore can not alienate the audience or investors with material that is too challenging.
Ultimately, it’s a weird mixture. I feel it has become increasingly liberal. There is a pseudo-pacifistic, presumptuous tone to much of the war reporting.
Do you really think subsidizing small businesses is a great idea?
I do, within limits.
Small businesses face structural impediments due, in many cases, to government actions, especially regulatory reporting and similar requirements.
Despite that, when they are able to overcome the barriers to market entry small business have traditionally performed several very valuable functions that yield value to all of us:
– they are the main engines of technical and related innovations
– they are a major entry point for immigrants into middle-class economic status, political and other social integration. Small businesses allow families to substitute long hours of labor for immediate access to capital.
I could go on, but won’t turn this into a treatise.
Beyond my B-school economics and some detailed research, however, I’ll just say that my personal experience is as an enabling executive in multiple minority-owned small businesses over 2 decades. In each case, I was part of the team that helped a $2-$3 million / yr (or less), 20 person (or fewer) firm grow to $25-60 million / yr in revenues with a staff of 100+ people. That’s a major jobs engine and many of our staff were recent graduates.
Alice, I think you have two sentences that are interesting. The first is
“Media is liberal in general in that they by definition take a questioning stance against everything, including authority.”
That’s in contrast to “One gets the impression that certain newsroom cultures simply won’t tolerate dissention on certain issues.”
The two seem to cancel each other out.
Funny thing is: I think you’re right. Certainly, the individual journalists I know honestly believe that it’s their job (and one they do well) to question everything. But amid that, they also have calcified and simple views of what’s assumed to be true – universal health care good; multiculturalism good; Christianity bad; military bad; business bad; government good; academics and urbanites smarter and more reliable than non-academics/suburban & rural dwellers; etc.
My biggest issue these days isn’t that the media seems to question everything, but that they don’t question enough. They have a healthy – at times too healthy – skepticism about the Bush administration; in contrast, their credulity for John Kerry and his campaign is, quite frankly, embarrassing.
I’m not as suspicious as some about the motivations of this (though I grow more so every day). I am every bit as irritated and occasionally disgusted with the results as anyone else.
While I agree with Thorley that the ideal situation would be to remove all subsidies to all businesses, the second best solution may be to subsidize small business. Right now big business is subsidized to the hilt and it’s politically impossible to remove these subsidies. So subsidies to small business would merely be levelling the playing field.
The government reporting requirements alone constitute an enormous subsidy to big business.
Geez, this guy doesn’t sound very liberal to me. More like an upper class snot putting on airs. But I guess that’s your point.
It’s always been amazing to me how few of the elite have actually accomplished anything or ever are particularly bright.
I remember a party I attended a few years ago at which one of the guests, a very wealthy attorney, was arguing in favor of a hereditary aristocracy. His father was a druggist and his mother a primary school teacher. He didn’t see the irony.
I suspect he may be right, if what he is saying is that the median income of small business owners is larger than the median income of pension fund members.
But I imagine it would be a hard statistic to dig up.
“Though Yitzhak Rabin did seem to put forward a different, more noble ideal when he said “We will pursue peace as if there is no terrorism and fight terrorism as if there is no peace”. That seems to imply one should cut good faith, just, deals with your adversary even as the terrorism continues.”
It also implies that “good faith, just, deals” and “as the terrorism continues” are not mutually contradictory statements.
Long ago Kinsley was right on 80% of the time, dead wrong the rest; now the percentages are reversed, but he is still capable of making an excellent point.
Small business owners who are NOT in the start up phase (where they tend to be massively in debt, poor and overworked–what fun!) and NOT looking at either massive expansion or quick cash-out opportunities–in other words, your stable mom and pop operation, one or two stores/restaurants/whatevers, can indeed be gold mines. And, yes Kinsley bashers, this has a lot to do with the current tax code in which they are showered with goodies.
I know families who have 3 and 4 luxury SUVs which are occasionally used for delivery purposes (maybe 2-3% of the mileage) that are totally written off because “the business” owns them. Small business owners can pay themselves next to nothing, but through the miracle of creative accounting live in $2 mil. mansions.
I’m not saying such small businessmen don’t work hard–the question is why they merit the endless list of tax priveleges that push their take home envelopes as high as some corporate CEOs (or at least CFOs). And don’t tell me the jobs they create are more desirable than those of big corporations–this is where the medical insurance squeeze lives and grows, people. If anything, the pay is lower, the chances for advancement much worse (because Jr. will inherit the biz and nobody has any plans to grow the business to the next level–why should they? things are rosy as is–talk about perverse economic disincentives!).
Kinsley’s more right than wrong here.
I know families who have 3 and 4 luxury SUVs which are occasionally used for delivery purposes (maybe 2-3% of the mileage) that are totally written off because “the business” owns them. Small business owners can pay themselves next to nothing, but through the miracle of creative accounting live in $2 mil. mansions.
Those aren’t flaws in the tax code, they’re flaws in enforcement. You can claim practically anything until you’re caught.
Alice –
I’m talking about the difference between the ideology of the members of the group and the anthropology about their behavior. It suggests that the ideology is something like a brand loyalty…the liberalism of the memebrs of the media you describe is certainly real (people self-select professions for the most part); but the conservatism involves avoiding issues that challenge the underlying status quo (as opposed to more ephemeral cultural issues like guns and abortion), particularly when that status quo involves members of one’s ‘peer group; – Kinsley’s wife is the president of the Gates foundation, and as such, I have no doubt that their peer group is the academic and corporate elite.
praktike –
The issue isn’t the median income/wealth of small business owners vs. pension fund members – it’s the income/wealth of small business owners vs. corporate management. I don’t have a lot of doubt about who will win…
yehudit –
Yeah, a great ideal, but show me someplace where it’s worked.
A.L.
A.L.
Yes. That’s very interesting. This reminds me of an experience I had this summer. My husband and I spent three weeks in Sweden and were expecting a lot of anti-Bush/anti-US stuff from our Swedish family and friends. Interestingly enough, most of the comments we heard were Swedes complaining about their own government in a way that would make any American Conservative proud. Yet all but one of these Swedes are people who would describe themselves as liberal Socialists. And all of them would say they think Bush is an ass. They question their government, but they would never actually give another party a chance to make things better. It’s weird.
In terms of journalists, I think journalists who have the “change the world” syndrome are most likely to not question the liberal status quo. Hence the stupid “all war is bad” reporting. The reporters who want to give you and me different perspectives so we can draw our own conclusions are in short supply these days.
But blogs sure help!
bq. _Those aren’t flaws in the tax code, they’re flaws in enforcement. You can claim practically anything until you’re caught.”_
Sounds like an argument for a flat tax on a national scale.
“The issue isn’t the median income/wealth of small business owners vs. pension fund members – it’s the income/wealth of small business owners vs. corporate management.”
But it sounds like Kinsley is arguing that workers with savings in pension funds are the owners of big corporations.
Kinsley says: “Big businesses are owned by pension funds for working people, by and large.”
Doesn’t say “managed” anywhere that I can see.
C’mon praktike – who benefits, in specific from large corporations? shareholders, customers, or management?
One of my peeves is that in the last twenty-five years, we’ve tipped the balance far too far in favor of management and at the expense of the other two.
So it’s nice handwaving for Kinsley to point to the working-class ‘owners’ of the Tribune Company; but somehow I don’t think they get time on the company jet.
A.L.
Besides what is wrong with small business owners aka people who actually work making more money than pensioners?!?
So it’s nice handwaving for Kinsley to point to the working-class ‘owners’ of the Tribune Company; but somehow I don’t think they get time on the company jet.
Aha! So are you saying that the ownership society is a gigantic scam?
praktike –
Well, I’m amused to think of the brokerage fees that will be earned by all those privatized accounts…
A.L.
A lot of current coverage is just garbage.
Read the following, it’s pretty deflating.
Dumbest. Election. Ever
JC,
This article starts out well but then descends into bs; beginning from this:
bq. “The fact that military assault weapons will soon be making a perfectly legal return to a neighborhood near you”
Military assault weapons? Like what.
bq. “The rape and torture of men, women and children in the Abu Ghraib prison, horrors that were sanctioned in writing by Bush’s own lawyer and the Secretary of Defense”
So what? What do you want to do about it?
bq. “The allegations by several generals that Bush’s people started stripping necessary troops and resources from Afghanistan to bolster their ill-conceived charge into Iraq; ”
Allegations…
bq. “The myriad accusations by a dozen insiders that Bush and his people ignored the terror threat until the Towers fell, and then used the attacks to scare the American people into an unnecessary war in Iraq and a mammoth payday for their friends in the weapons and oil business;”
Accusations…
bq. “The fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq;”
So what? It’s immaterial.
bq. “The fact that no connections between Hussein, bin Laden and 9/11 have been established beyond the bloviating hyperbole of a few senior Bush officials who haven’t yet gotten the memo; ”
So what? It was not the reason.
bq. “Does anyone even remember Enron? ”
Well, I do. Now what?
The point, Checkin Out, was that these are issues that should be debated, as to how they relate to GWB’s deserving another term in office – instead we are talking about the SBVT ads.
Why don’t we discuss those issues that you say are accusations and allegations instead of the petty controversies swirling around Kerry and Bush’s Vietnam records?
You know, it is not entirely immaterial whether Bush and Kerry lied a bit about their past. But OK, as I’ve said, I agree in general. My problem with this is that some of the issues listed aren’t any better than SVBT ads (and it’s not that they haven’t been discussed at all.) But even w/o such a discussion I know that W does not deserve another term, which, at the same time, doesn’t make me enamored of Kerry, and his Moore’ified constituency (especially the latter.)
If the article ended before the “assault” weapons bs, I’d applaud. They should have concentrated on a few core issues, like health and employment, for example — and drive them hard and inexorably, with no letup. No one gives a crap about “assault” weapons and whether WMDs were found in Iraq. Even W’s obvious cretinism is not a very promising point because the other side is far from perfect as well (although in a different way.) But they just can’t stop at what’s fair, reasonable, and truly important; they gotta start chanting their annoying “progressive” shibboleths — which, I’m sorry to say, do not make much sense. To beat the system one needs to be genuine. The Dems aren’t and so they destroy their own credibility. As a result we have what we have. It is far from obvious to the regular Joe Voter that a sorta “conservative” hick fascism is worse than a kinda numbnut totalitarianism of “progressive” pc-squawkers. Both are fraudulent. Are there any other options on the table? Not realistically.