"Since the earliest stages of human history, of course, there have been bazaars, rialtos, and trading posts—all markets. But The Market was never God, because there were other centers of value and meaning, other 'gods.' The Market operated within a plethora of other institutions that restrained it. As Karl Polanyi has demonstrated in his classic work The Great Transformation, only in the past two centuries has The Market risen above these demigods and chthonic spirits to become today's First Cause."
Harvey Cox, The Market As God: Living In the New Dispensation
"Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as servants to obey, his servants you become, whether of a corruption unto death, or of a righteousness unto life?"
Rom 6:16
Thomas Frank is far, far too kind to Obama and the Wall Street Democrats.
It was not about a misguided attempt to work together with irrational people.
No, it was all about throwing the people under the bus in the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. Nothing could be more clear.
This was the Clinton Legacy, and Obama and the rest of the Democratic Establishment went along for the ride— into an electoral brick wall.
For the professional class of politicians and the wealthy this was not about civil rights, this was not about decency and justice, and it certainly was not about compassion and kindness even if they were very careful to keep mouthing the words and giving lip service to the pretenses of social but not economic equality.
It was all about money and power. Theirs. Narrowly focused greed that was willfully blind to all that was happening around it. Washington and New York and London and Berlin are thick with it.
And now that their mighty god has betrayed them and bestowed its power on its other, more faithfully vicious children, they are running around without a mission or a purpose other than themselves, not knowing what to do next.
