I have been using a different source" Balzac. Pere Goriot, tr. Henry Reed (NY: Signet Classic). 115: "At the bottom of every great fortune without apparent source, there's always some crime -- a crime overlooked because it's been carried out respectably."
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Mperelman at csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 www.michaelperelman.wordpress.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2015 2:38 PM To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition; Progressive Economics Subject: [Pen-l] Fwd: Behind every great fortune there is a crime | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist The title of this article stems from Honoré de Balzac’s “Père Goriot”. Often seen erroneously (including by me) as the novel’s epigraph, it is actually words spoken by a scheming, malevolent character named Vautrin: “The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been discovered, because it was properly executed.” Whatever the exact words, the Balzacian worldview came to mind after reading the NY Times series of articles on the filthy rich and mostly criminal owners of the city’s most expensive condos. They sank in further after watching an episode on “Sixty Minutes” about HSBC, a Swiss bank that facilitated tax evasion and worse. I suppose that I should have long been inured to the criminality of the super-rich but for some reason I always stop dead in my tracks when I encounter it anew on such a grand scale. I end up feeling like Joe Buck, the Texas hustler who has come to NY to make it as a professional gigolo in “Midnight Cowboy”, standing over a man sprawled out unconscious on the sidewalk as people pass him by with barely a glance. Unlike the rest of humanity, Buck tells himself that something is wrong. full: http://louisproyect.org/2015/02/15/behind-every-great-fortune-there-is-a-crime/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
