On Fauxgressive Rationalizations of Selling Out to Powerful, Moneyed Backers

[phantom power]

The “you need to have a seat at the table” crowd misses how best to steer a path in complex systems. As John Kay points out in his new book Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly, one does better by sticking with principles, since it is beyond our capabilities to map a straight path. He compares the performance of companies within a number of different industries who set out to maximize profits against those that set higher and more complex objectives. The ones that had the richer, more aspirational aims did better in financial terms. Apple is a classic example.

And if you put values first, you need to be willing to incur costs, another issue lost on the careerists. The Roosevelt Institute has only recently evolved into a think tank that would promote and defend New Deal principles. One big step forward was getting Elizabeth Warren involved, since she had done landmark research on how middle class families were losing out in the financialization of the economy.

One can debate whether Warren was wise to join the Administration as an advisor, but she is taking an extraordinary amount of punishment to defend what she believes is right. Pretty much anyone else would have taken the hint and announced a date certain for leaving her post as de facto head of the CFPB; Brooksley Born took far less abuse before beating a retreat. But the spectacle of Warren refusing to fold in the face of a Congressional and media onslaught has galvanized the public around her. This is what leadership is supposed to look like and the country is desperate for someone, anyone who isn’t a sellout.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/on-fauxgressive-rationalizations-of-selling-out-to-powerful-moneyed-backers.html