Why it unsurprising to read a Capitalist warning, in this newspaper, about the danger of the Right and Left Extremes, as the threats to the business of profit taking! The fact of the Shoah frames this polemic, it is meant to evoke fear and revulsion, that features, at the least, one faction of those extreme political actors. The reader should consult Victor Klemperer’s ‘I Will Bear Witness‘ volumes I & II , he remained in the Eastern Sector of Germany, after the War.

In American the ‘Political Center’ is now defined as the Alliance of New Democrats, in sum Neo-Liberals, Neo-Conservative, and the now disappeared Lincoln Project. That toxic alliance evolved and produced the 2008 Depression, via the Free Market delusion: the wholesale destruction of the Welfare State and the rise of Robber Capital – all this is ignored in Mr. Moretz’s Morality Play. The watershed of 2008 was Occupy Wall Street, decimated by Oligarch Michael Bloomberg and President Obama, yet Piketty appeared as the vindication of that band of dissenters, in the heart of Wall Street Temples!

What did Obama offer to that 2008 Depression? ‘Let’s put it behind us’ and Simpson/Bowles, the apotheosis of an utterly failed Austerity. Is this what Mr. Moritz might opine as the sine qua non of his garlanded ‘Centrism’ ?

So, now, it’s up to all of us in the world of business to play our part and make sure the extremism of both left and right in America is seen for what it is: a menace to our future together. We are all culpable.

Some of us were ineffective with our warnings. Some provided support to forces of darkness. But all of us are guilty of not listening closely enough to the arguments of our opponents.

Mr. Moritz then self-reports:

Almost five years ago, I tried, in vain, to highlight for the business community Mr Trump’s past as a conman, bully, racist, failed entrepreneur and authoritarian. I also wrote about the differences between him and the people who start Silicon Valley companies, noting: “They are not nationalists who stir up dark memories of purges, pogroms, the 1930s, Latin-American strongmen or central African dictators.”

Those ‘Silicone Valley Companies’ : Google, Twitter, Facebook now determine who can use, and speak on their apps, as if the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are/were null and void. This does not register with Mr. Moritz. His penultimate paragraph is an instruction as to when ‘self-interest’ must yield to a moral imperative, which is hard to argue against. Except to the diehard followers of Mises, Hayek and Friedman, in which ‘The Market’ is the sine qua non of Human Knowledge.

The past four years have demonstrated there are times when it is best to set self-interest aside. Given the choice between appealing polices and a dark character, and objectionable policies and a respectable character, it is always safer to pick the latter. 

https://www.ft.com/content/143c7577-5e6a-4804-92ce-4b58f25a59cb

Political Reporter