The Twilight of the Elites..

[Fumesucker]

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971117,00.html

In the past decade, nearly every pillar institution in American society — whether it's General Motors, Congress, Wall Street, Major League Baseball, the Catholic Church or the mainstream media — has revealed itself to be corrupt, incompetent or both. And at the root of these failures are the people who run these institutions, the bright and industrious minds who occupy the commanding heights of our meritocratic order. In exchange for their power, status and remuneration, they are supposed to make sure everything operates smoothly. But after a cascade of scandals and catastrophes, that implicit social contract lies in ruins, replaced by mass skepticism, contempt and disillusionment.

In the wake of the implosion of nearly all sources of American authority, this new decade will have to be about reforming our institutions to reconstitute a more reliable and democratic form of authority. Scholarly research shows a firm correlation between strong institutions, accountable élites and highly functional economies; mistrust and corruption, meanwhile, feed each other in a vicious circle. If our current crisis continues, we risk a long, ugly process of de-development: higher levels of corruption and tax evasion and an increasingly fractured public sphere, in which both public consensus and reform become all but impossible.

For more than 35 years, Gallup has polled Americans about levels of trust in their institutions — Congress, banks, Big Business, public schools, etc. In 2008 nearly every single institution was at an all-time low. Banks were trusted by just 32% of the populace, down from more than 50% in 2004. Newspapers were down to 24%, from slightly below 40% at the start of the decade. And Congress was the least trusted institution of all, with only 12% of Americans expressing confidence in it. The mistrust of élites extends to élites themselves. Every year, public-relations guru Richard Edelman conducts a "trust barometer" across 22 countries, in which he surveys only highly educated, high-earning, media-attentive people. In the U.S., these people show extremely low levels of trust in government and business alike. Particularly distrusted are the superman CEOs of yore. "Chief-executive trust has just been mired in the mid- to low 20s," says Edelman. "It started off with Enron and culminates in Citi."

Such figures show that the crisis of authority extends beyond narrow ideological categories: Big Business and unions, Congress and Wall Street, organized religion and science are all viewed with skepticism. So why is it that so much of the country's leadership in so many different walks of life performed so terribly over this decade? While no single-cause theory can explain such a wide array of institutional failures, there are some themes — in particular, the concentration of power and the erosion of transparency and accountability — that extend throughout.

<snip>

More at the link..

[bleever]

1. This is pure genius. Hi Chris; I'm bleever.

I've always enjoyed your analysis, but this, far and away, is your most incisive and broad-reaching piece I've had the opportunity to experience, and I think you're artfully articulating something remarkable: the paradigm change that we are all experiencing, while we are simultaneously creating it.


:patriot:


ed: punc.

[dgauss]

2. This article equates distrust of CEOs with distrust of science.

I like Christopher Hayes and think this article makes an important point.

But it's like he feels the need to be "balanced." He points out the general erosion of trust across the board. He gives examples of distrust of CEOs and provides a little context for that distrust. Likewise organized religion (specifically the Catholic church).

Then he mentions a mistrust in science (specifically climate change science) but instead of providing any justification or context for this distrust he simply cites poll numbers.

People distrust CEOs because of their actions, their distrust of climate change science is a result of a coordinated disinformation effort. Not the same thing.

I get the feeling Time requires this sort of balance for revenue purposes.

[lunatica]

5. I think this article is about what happens when there's no transparency

and the elite we used to trust have violated that trust profoundly. The mention of the poll numbers regarding climate change issues seems to prove his point that the people have lost faith in those who they trusted at one time. Even scientists.

The thing that impresses me the most is that he isn't talking about re-building any of the pillars of society, but instead building something new. I've thought for a long time that it isn't good to keep trying to re-build something that broke because it's foundation was faulty.

[Fumesucker]

3. Kick for the morning Krewe..

:kick:

[marions ghost]

4. Corruption

Massive widespread violations of "the social contract" --it does destroy civilized society, in the end.

Implosion from within.

It's unusual to even see any mainstream media referring to the problem of corruption. I guess it's OK now? The article does include "the mainstream media." :thumbsup:

But is this really "the Twilight of the Elites" --isn't that a little optimistic at this point?:eyes: