My Ramadan

GT in #198 << ``Those who succeed to power must be smart`` means ``success in power implies knowledge``. People who say so are no way saying that ``knowledge implies success in power`` and therefore that ``knowledge`` and ``power`` are the same. This is Mill`s exaggerated assertion made on behalf of Joe two packs. >>>

Here is the complete part of the quote by Mills

<< But to say that those who succeed to power must be `smart,` is to say that power is knowledge. To say that those who succeed to wealth must be smart, is to say that wealth is knowledge.

The prevalence of such assumptions does reveal something that is true: that ordinary men, even today, are prone to explain and to justify power and wealth in terms of knowledge or ability. >>

If knowledge (or ability or hard work) is held to be a necessary causation factor in reaching power, then reaching power IMPLIES knowledge and not knowledge implies power, that is what Mills said power= knowledge and not knowledge = power, same with wealth. He is translating what Hamid 2 pack holds to be the case.

Then you write

<<< Having said that I agree in general, my own experience is that people usually do not give as much importance to ``wealth`` in the US as they do in our part of the world >>>

That is certainly not the case, the popular culture as well as life here is centered around the economic to the sacrifice of everything else including family, this is not so in our parts of the world where the economy has not reached a stage it has here and people are dependent more on the family than on the economy.

Re: # 196 by masadi:

Asadi:

On this part I am mostly in agreement. However, given your penchant for logic I am a bit surprised that you have overlooked the following:

``But to say that those who succeed to power must be `smart,` is to say that power is knowledge. To say that those who succeed to wealth must be smart, is to say that wealth is knowledge.``

``Those who succeed to power must be smart`` means ``success in power implies knowledge``. People who say so are no way saying that ``knowledge implies success in power`` and therefore that ``knowledge`` and ``power`` are the same. This is Mill`s exaggerated assertion made on behalf of Joe two packs. The next statement has a similar flaw.

Having said that I agree in general, my own experience is that people usually do not give as much importance to ``wealth`` in the US as they do in our part of the world. On a trivial note, and just to emphasize my point, Jane two packs will not hesitate in throwing Bill Gates out of a bar in SF were he to smoke there.

Re: # 195 by masadi:

``Under such conditions of success, there is no virtue in starting out poor and becoming rich.``

Why not? Why should one adhere to Mill`s, Asadi`s or Hamid`s definition of ``virtue``? I for one will ahere to my own definition of ``virtue``.

``Only where the ways of becoming rich are such as to require virtue or to lead to virtue does personal enrichment imply virtue.``

Right, and given one`s definition of ``virtue``, some amongst the many American ways of becomming rich could indeed be ``virtuous``.

``In a system of co-optation from above, whether you began rich or poor seems less relevant in revealing what kind of man you are when you have arrived than in revealing the principles of those in charge of selecting the ones who succeed.``

Yes, a subset of principles need to be aligned between what you call the ``co-opters`` and the ``co-opted``. And that is enough to rise in the US hierarchy (unlike say in Chile, China, India or Iran where a lot more need to be aligned {this is my personal belief}). Also, and because of this, these ``co-opters`` need not have the same ``principles``. In other words, a person need not be co-opted by the unanimous decision of the co-opters. Hence, whether you begin rich or poor could indeed be relevant.

Yes the US is lousy in comparison to Utopia. And I hear Americans, like Chomsky, cribbing about it all the time. And it is precisely because of this that America is what it is.

A few more words of wisdom that is related to our earlier discussions

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``By the middle of the twentieth century, the American elite have become an entirely different breed of men from those who could on any reasonable grounds be considered a cultural elite, or even for that matter cultivated men of sensibility. Knowledge and power are not truly united inside the ruling circles; and when men of knowledge do come in contact with the circles of powerful men, they come not as peers but as hired men. The elite of power, wealth, and celebrity do not have even a passing acquaintance with the elite of culture, knowledge and sensibility; they are not in touch with them-although the ostentatious fringes of the two worlds sometimes overlap in the world of the celebrity.

Most men are encouraged to assume that, in general, the most powerful and the wealthiest are also the most knowledgeable or, as they might say, `the smartest.` Such ideas are propped up by many little slogans about those who `teach because they can`t do,` and about `if you`re so smart, why aren`t you rich?` But all that such wisecracks mean is that those who use them assume that power and wealth are sovereign values for all men and especially for men `who are smart.` They assume also that knowledge always pays off in such ways, or surely ought to, and that the test of genuine knowledge is just such pay-offs. The powerful and the wealthy must be the men of most knowledge, otherwise how could they be where they are? But to say that those who succeed to power must be `smart,` is to say that power is knowledge. To say that those who succeed to wealth must be smart, is to say that wealth is knowledge.

The prevalence of such assumptions does reveal something that is true: that ordinary men, even today, are prone to explain and to justify power and wealth in terms of knowledge or ability. Such assumptions also reveal something of what has happened to the kind of experience that knowledge has come to be. Knowledge is no longer widely felt as an ideal; it is seen as an instrument. In a society of power and wealth, knowledge is valued as an instrument of power and wealth, and also, of course, as an ornament in conversation.``

(C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956)

Note these words of this man of vision:

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``There is still one old American value that has not markedly declined: the value of money and of the things money can buy-these, even in inflated times, seem as solid and enduring as stainless steel. `I`ve been rich and I`ve been poor,` Sophie Tucker has said, `and believe me, rich is best.` As many other values are weakened, the question for Americans becomes not Is there anything that money, used with intelligence, will not buy?` but, `How many of the things that money will not buy are valued and desired more than what money will buy?` Money is the one unambiguous criterion of success, and such success is still the sovereign American value.

Whenever the standards of the moneyed life prevail, the man with money, no matter how he got it, will eventually be respected. A million dollars, it is said, covers a multitude of sins. It is not only that men want money; it is that their very standards are pecuniary. In a society in which the money-maker has had no serious rival for repute and honor, the word `practical` comes to mean useful for private gain, and `common sense,` the sense to get ahead financially. The pursuit of the moneyed life is the commanding value, in relation to which the influence of other values has declined, so men easily become morally ruthless in the pursuit of easy money and fast estate-building.

A great deal of corruption is simply a part of the old effort to get rich and then to become richer. But today the context in which the old drive must operate has changed. When both economic and political institutions were small and scattered-as in the simpler models of classical economics and Jeffersonian democracy-no man had it in his power to bestow or to receive great favors. But when political institutions and economic opportunities are at once concentrated and linked, then public office can be used for private gain.

.....It is the proud claim of the higher circles in America that their members are entirely self-made. ,b>That is their self-image and their well-publicized myth. Popular proof of this is based on anecdotes its scholarly proof is supposed to rest upon statistical rituals whereby it is shown that varying proportions of the men at the top are sons of men of lower rank. We have already seen the proportions of given elite circles composed of the men who have risen (and they are very low). But what is more important than the proportions of the sons of wage workers among these higher circles is the criteria of admission to them, and the question of who applies these criteria. We cannot from upward mobility infer higher merit. Even if the rough figures that now generally hold were reversed, and 90 per cent of the elite were sons of wage workers-but the criteria of co-optation by the elite remained what they now are-we could not from that mobility necessarily infer merit. Only if the criteria of the top positions were meritorious, and only if they were self-applied, as in a purely entrepreneurial manner, could we smuggle merit into such statistics-from any statistics-of mobility. The idea that the self-made man is somehow `good` and that the family-made man is not good makes moral sense only when the career is independent, when one is on one`s own as an entrepreneur. It would also make sense in a strict bureaucracy where examinations control advancement. It makes little sense in the system of corporate co-optation.

There is, in psychological fact, no such thing as a self-made man. No man makes himself, least of all the members of the American elite. In a world of corporate hierarchies, men are selected by those above them in the hierarchy in accordance with whatever criteria they use. In connection with the corporations of America, we have seen the current criteria. Men shape themselves to fit them, and are thus made by the criteria, the social premiums that prevail. If there is no such thing as a self-made man, there is such a thing as a self-used man, and there are many such men among the American elite.

Under such conditions of success, there is no virtue in starting out poor and becoming rich. Only where the ways of becoming rich are such as to require virtue or to lead to virtue does personal enrichment imply virtue. In a system of co-optation from above, whether you began rich or poor seems less relevant in revealing what kind of man you are when you have arrived than in revealing the principles of those in charge of selecting the ones who succeed.``

(C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite, 1956)