zaitcev.mee.nu

In a review Joel Kotkin's book, Jay Cost summarizes the new classes thus:

Kotkin asserts that a new ruling class has emerged from the upper echelon of society, one that is starting to rival the oligarchs of the late 19th century. In the Gilded Age, it was the railroad barons, oil magnates, and sundry industrial tycoons who had in their pockets machine politicians. Today, our incipient rulers come from the technology sector, which sprung up in California and Seattle in the wake of the computer and Internet revolutions. Joining them is a new "clerisy” of elites from academia, government, think tanks, and media.

The two camps are united around the concept of so-called "gentry liberalism,” which is defined by postwar ideals such as environmentalism, consumer rights, and cultural leftism. This differentiates the new oligarchs from the old ones in important ways. The so-called Robber Barons had an interest in economic growth and, ultimately, a vibrant middle class that could afford to purchase the goods they made. Today’s would-be oligarchs lack such an incentive. As Kotkin notes, one need not be middle class to afford a smartphone. And the new oligarch’s ideological commitment to environmentalism usually means stifling development for the sake of "sustainability.”

Arrayed against the oligarchs is a group Kotkin calls the yeoman class, a phrase that harkens back to the small, independent farmers idealized by the Jeffersonian Republicans of the early 19th century. Today’s yeomanry is not on the farm, but is composed of small businessmen and property holders. Often aligned with them are the old industries—oil, natural gas, coal, and other extracted-resource concerns—that share the yeoman’s priority for broad-based economic growth.

The observations and analysis above strike to the very heart of the issue. However, Cost finds something missing from Kotkin's work:

First, the clerisy and the tech oligarchs constitute a minority of society. For them to have a stranglehold on our democratic politics thus requires an alliance with other groups. The 19th century robber barons developed precisely such an alliance.

How does the new oligarchy possess power beyond its numbers? The answer inevitably gets back to the class that is often left out of Kotkin’s analysis: the poor, particularly racial and ethnic minorities. The tech elite and clerisy are lodged within the Democratic party, which depends on poor and minority voters for a large share of its vote, and the logroll that exists between the two sides is crucial.

In my experience, there's more to it. Cost (and Cost's Kotkin) splits "elite" and "clerisy" -- see "and" joining them above. In my view, there is a large glue class between them: the non-elite tech cum the clerisy, with members of that class freely migrating in the pool. Look no further than Val Henson who went on from programming to agitating. A class above her is Larry Lessig made the same lateral move. Some, like mjg59, engage in harmful activism (such as 0xB16B00B5) while continuing tech work, time permitting. These people constitute canon fodder of their liberal thought-masters, willingly identifying with the new liberals. The liberal oligarhs do not merely have the structures of the government to do their bidding, but a large number of the gluepersons, too.

UPDATE: See also a column in USA Today by Instapundit. He is also short on suggestions and fails to identify the tech henchmen.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at 07:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 560 words, total size 4 kb.