A Question Of Power

Sometimes we all stand around wondering what the hell's wrong with the world, and why does it seem like so many people aren't willing to do what they need to do to make things work anymore.

Asking the right questions is kinda important.

Through the paradigm of broken windows policing (also known as quality of life policing), "We have come to identify certain acts - graffiti spraying, litter, panhandling, turnstile jumping, and prostitution - and not others - police brutality, accounting scams, and tax evasion - as disorderly and connected to broader patterns of serious crime," writes Bernard Harcourt in Policing Disorder. Harcourt is one of the few academics that has been shouting in the dark for 20 years, but now that broken windows is back in the headlines, his work seems more prescient than ever.

"Why does broken windows focus on the dollar-fifty turnstile jump," Harcourt writes, "rather than on the hundred-million dollar accounting scam?"

The literal-minded would answer that it's because of jurisdiction. Police don't handle massive accounting scams; that's the job of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But Harcourt's question is rhetorical and speaks to a deeper issue of perception: Why are habits borne of material deprivation - begging for money, evading a train fare, dancing for tips on the subway, or selling untaxed cigarettes - more criminalized, in our laws and minds, then things that hurt more people and fundamentally undermine the institutions that make up an orderly society?

--and--

The hedge-fund industry oversaw a record $2.8 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter, according to industry tracker HFR Inc. That marked the eighth consecutive quarterly record for industrywide assets under management, up from $2.7 trillion at the end of the first quarter.

--and--

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are both calling for Congress to investigate the New York Federal Reserve Bank after recently releasedsecret recordings show the central bank allegedly going light on firms it was supposed to regulate.

Warren and Brown, both members of the Senate Banking Committee, called for an investigation of the New York Fed after Carmen Segarra, a former examiner at the bank, released secretly recorded tapes that she claims show her superiors telling her to go easy on private banks. Segarra says that she was fired from her job in 2012 for refusing to overlook Goldman’s lack of a conflict of interest policy and other questionable practices that should have brought tougher regulatory scrutiny.

Unfortunately, the inoculation process has been successful - Gubmint is bad; investigations are just political theater (see Whitewater and Benghazi); politicians are all the same; both sides do it; all we need is for Congress to get out of the way; etc etc etc.

Generally, we act and react according to the examples we see every day.  If the people with all the power and money get to behave like they're not bound by the rules, and they can make money on the work of others, and they can use the money to buy the power they need to close the circle and make that big bamboozle go 'round again - then why should it be any different for everybody else?  

Unfortunately, on the political side of things, that translates to a widening refusal to participate, so we don't vote.  And it just gets a little worse.

But mostly, it seems to come down to the hostage metaphor.  We want somebody to do something, but the hostage-takers won't allow anybody to do the things that have helped in the past - infrastructure improvements, and education, and wage support; all that Keanesian stuff that actually works.  Unfortunately, we've got a pretty bad pathology going on that centers around self-loathing and punishment and austerity, and we're being conditioned to believe that if we can just get our minds right, we can be happy with our crappy little lives because at least the masters aren't beating us with sticks quite as often.

Stop wondering why so many people just wanna see it all burn.