Tag: netflix

Elegant Slumming

Who doesn’t like a wry metaphor or particularly apt simile? Tom Wolfe’s writing is rich in both. His short story Radical Chic depicts the wealthy of NY cooing over the edgy Marxist-Leninist black power organization.

For example, does that huge Black Panther there in the hallway, the one shaking hands with Felicia Bernstein herself, the one with the black leather coat and the dark glasses and the absolutely unbelievable Afro, Fuzzy-Wuzzy-scale, in fact—is he, a Black Panther, going on to pick up a Roquefort cheese morsel rolled in crushed nuts from off the tray, from a maid in uniform, and just pop it down the gullet without so much as missing a beat of Felicia’s perfect Mary Astor voice…

And this is all in one sentence. As a high schooler I would try out a few colorful comparisons just to have my paper returned marked up in red: too DRAMATIC! I guess you have to be famous to be creative.

There’s more to talk about in Radical Chic than a descriptive tableau. Perhaps we should take a cue from economist and blogger Tyler Cowen, who recently wrote about the Odyssey in economic terms. After all, the point of Radical Chic is a money transfer from the ultra-rich to a group with a cause, the Black Panthers.

In the Odyssey, the people involved are neatly tucked away on their islands. The groups are clearly delineated as a sea separates them from the others Homer meets on his journey. Fortunately, we have the clever and perceptive Tom Wolfe. He makes the reader see the affluent managing their servants in their townhomes in Manhattan. He corrals one group with descriptors and then another.

What the Bersteins will find out is that there are, in fact, many groups to consider. Many more than the radical chic who desperately needed something new and different in their lives. By the short story’s end, Wolfe lists many more economic players.

FOOLS, BOORS, PHILISTINES, BIRCHERS, B’NAI B’RITHEES, Defense Leaguers, Hadassah theater party piranhas, UJAvia-tors, concert-hall Irishmen, WASP ignorati, toads, newspaper readers-they were booing him, Leonard Bernstein, the egre-gio maestro… Boooooo.

As Leneord Berstein, a famous maestro, is booed while on stage, he learns that there were many more groups in play than the virtuous and the radicals, and this fact has led to him taking a private loss.

When stakes are high-

Westminister Church has a wonderful town hall forum that hosts interesting visitors in a its beautiful nave. Today’s guest was Keyu Jin whose book, The New China Playbook, Beyond Socialism and Capitalism, was recently published. I was not familiar with this professor from the London School of Economics but the title of the talk drew me in.

After the half hour talk, Prof Jin took questions from the audience. Tane Danger, the host, looks through the cards in order to group similar topics together.

One audience member asks about the nuts and bolts of the k-12 education system in China. She responded that the party originally was responsible for education and it was free to all. But the one child policy in conjunction with fierce competition to vie for the best spots in the work force, led couples to hire tutors. A high score on placement exams guarantee economic and social advancement. Thus, in response to demand, a large industry of private education providers was spawned. This led families of limited means to expend, according to Jin, as much as a quarter of their income on supplemental instruction.

Prof Jin saw this as a negative outcome to capitalism. People’s hopes and fears for their children’s success were being exploited by a private entrepreneurial spirit.

Which brings us back to a favorite topic here at Home Economics. The theory is that certain endeavors are better suited to cooperate efforts of resource providers, while others respond favorably to incentives. In the first instance, the common goal is achieved through public governance and provisions, whether informally within a group or formally via a state structure. Public education has positive impacts from all angles in a society which is undoubtedly why it was established and is still maintained as a public good in the US.

Prof Jin provides a counterfactual. When the state fails to prioritize education, private entrepreneurs jump in and fill the gap. In her example, their success in combination with the high stakes creates an inefficiency.