>Nathan wrote:
> >I just see Milken as the typical "big fish" that prosecutors were able to
> >get because of his arrogance and careless disregard for the law.
I wrote:
>-or maybe he's a scapegoat, like William Calley of My Lai infamy.
Nathan ripostes:
>And do you or Doug have evidence of orders coming down from the high
>command of Capital to create such a scapegoat?
No -- perhaps you missed the word "maybe" in my sentence above.
I am open to the "big fish" hypothesis, too, BTW, and am in effect asking
questions in order to figure out what went on. Unlike some, I am not
starting with a set position on the Milken question (and so I really
appreciated Justin's posting of the charges to which Milken pled guilty) --
nor do I see this issue as something that should I should invest lots of
emotion in. But I am quite irritated -- if not miffed! -- when people
attribute conspiracy theory-type thinking to me, though, since I view that
kind of thinking as a mind-killer.
>The frustration I have is that this kind of statement acts as if Capital
>issues orders with the precision of the military, when it rarely does in
>such a clean and uncontested way. Sometimes it does but the fact is that
>there is plenty of evidence cited for Milken's illegal acts under the law,
>so why that isn't sufficient an explanation baffles me.
(1) the _military_ doesn't issue orders with the precision often attributed
to the military. Like any bureaucracy, the efficiency that people like Max
Weber theorize in elite control of the hierarchy and the ranks is
continually blocked by cronyism, poor communication, and large numbers of
Good Soldier Sveiks. (sp?) One could invoke H*yek to show how central
planning of this sort (or any big conspiracy theory) can't work. The US
Joint Chiefs of Staff aren't a small group of puppet-masters, but are
instead continually trying to "put out fires" and to balance competing
political interests, both from the outside and the inside. Attaining
military goals is like steering a supertanker. Calley became the scapegoat
_not_ because the military elite chose him, but because he didn't have
enough political capital within military politics.
(2) Similarly, Milken didn't have enough political capital. As David noted,
Milken belonged to the "wrong" ethnic group as far as the WASP financial
elite was concerned at the time, so they could form informal alliances
against him -- which simultaneously helped their friends cover their asses.
Doug's case (if I may summarize) was _not_ that Milken was innocent (as if
that were possible on Wall Street) but that he was like a lot of other
people in the same walk of life who did not get prosecuted, even though
they did similar things. (Similarly, Calley wasn't innocent!)
>The structure of capital is such that many of the central players need
>never break the law to get wealthy, while marginal new players like Milken
>often do, but that is not scapegoating but merely the way power polices
>against new elites too agressively displacing the old.
It's scapegoating if someone's career (or a few individuals' careers are)
is sacrificed and then people announce in sanctimonious terms that the
financial market guardians have put their house in order, even though
systemic corruption persists.
It's true that the central players need never break the law to get wealthy,
but there's almost always an incentive for individuals in the market to do
so, especially those without established positions. That's what "industry
self-regulation" is about (usually with the government involved).
>... The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend. ...
of course; that should go without saying. _No-one_ said that Milken was a
friend of the left or of labor (except maybe David, who's not of the left).
Similarly, we shouldn't think that the anti-Milken forces within Wall
Street are friends of the left or labor. (We should avoid the naivete of
the film WALL STREET in which the Milken-like Gordon Gekko is BAD and the
others are GOOD.)
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
