First Adolph Reed and now Catherine Liu. I have been listening to her podcasts with Jacobin and became an instant admirer of the way she thinks. I will have to read her book, it sounds great. Looking forward to diving into Reed's book this weekend. Keep going Tara. This type of analysis is important. Also, you could do a deep dive into the transformation of the NDP into a PMC party rather than a worker party. At least that's what it seems has happened to me.
I'm an older person. I listen to the PMC's invalidating babble, and I immediately get the image of the old man Oz hiding behind his curtain, pulling levers, and completely unaware that his shim-sham has been revealed by the lowly Toto. Do you think that anyone in the PMC is aware that their insincerity is completely obvious? Or are they so full of themselves that they actually think they can piss on our heads and tell us it's raining?
As mentioned in other posts. I watched this same razzle dazzle happen to my husband last year at Canada's largest mental health hospital. 10 years ago that hospital was the only Canadian hospital to make it into the top 50 hospitals IN THE WORLD. This year, it can't even make it onto the list of top 300 places to work IN CANADA.
Style over substance does real damage to all of us.
Gentlemen, this was one of the snottiest self-congratulating exchanges I’ve seen in the comments. I would suggest giving the interview another listen. You may have missed the point.
You may have missed my other comment where I asked for a transcript. I have not listened to this interview, though I'm aware of both the concepts of the Professional Managerial Class and Bullshit Jobs.
They definitely overlap, but one can be PMC without having a bullshit job and/or have a bullshit job without being PMC. If you think that's a snotty and self-congratulating thing to say, I don't know what to tell you.
It’s a contextual thing. If you read the transcript of the interview and then reread your exchange, you may see my point. Honestly, I didn’t occur to me that people would be adding commentary without first having listened to (or read) the content. My bad.
Not everyone in the PMC has a bullshit job. I'm an accountant, which is definitely a PMC trade, but even Al Capone had a bookkeeper, which means accounting passes the black market test for not being a bullshit job.
In the black market world, enforcers/muscle fulfill pretty much the same role as lawyers do in the corporate world, so lawyers probably aren't bullshit jobs either.
The company I work at has a Director of Community Events - now THAT is a bullshit job if there ever was one.
If the black market will pay for certain symbol manipulation, then it must serve some fundamental purpose (money laundering being an exception, because the need is driven by hiding from regulation).
Kind of true, but most of those "arcane rules" are the result of businesses cooking their books to deceive either tax authorities or else their own investors. Every time a shady business cooks their books, a new rule gets written to crack down on it, and over time you end up with a convoluted labyrinth of rules.
Underneath the arms race that is creative accounting & regulation, however, money still needs to be tracked, which even the black market recognizes.
Agreed, not all white collar work is bullshit. Accounting, legal, sales, and investing have real metrics and results. The bullshit comes from HR, DEI, NGO, consulting aka power point making, etc.
I actually think investment advisory is a bullshit job - it's basically paying someone a fee to tell me whether they think I should bet on red or black.
So say you Mr. Accountant. Part of my investment advisor's value comes from telling me when to buy in or sell so called bet. And remember, we are not all educated in putting numbers on a report for businesses. Sometimes telling the uneducated what those numbers mean is of value too.
Fair enough, though an educated guess is still a guess at the end of the day. Your advisor doesn't KNOW whether buying or selling will pay off, he's just giving you his best guess.
Wow, I agreed with 99% of what Lui said. How did she ever get a full-time job as a professor? Where I work, she'd never get hired after critiquing the PMC in print. The only slight critique I would put on the table is that she seems to buy into the myth of the bogeyman of the right ready to turn America into a fascist tyranny. Instead, I see political ideology as existing as a series of points in a three-dimensional constellation, with many overlaps and confusions. There is no unalloyed "right" or "left" - we have to stop using the language of the woke if we want a reasonable conversation (e.g. stop saying "viewpoint diversity" and say instead freedom of speech and ideas, or rational debate).
Very late to the party here, and thrilled to find so many like-minded souls. Must start by mentioning that Tara is incredibly brave to take on the CBC, and wonderfully wise for doing so in such an unimpeachable manner. Tara, if you ever decide to offer etiquette classes, sign me up! I digress.
Catherine Liu is a champion for those of who have been not-so-subtly pointing out class inequities for years, yet she has managed to maintain an enviable job, whereas I fall more into the flailing mess category. And while I agree with her in theory about keeping up the fight, my dogged determination to expose the hypocrisy of the elite has been disastrous for my social life. In fact, a four-year relationship with my very kind and caring boyfriend recently went up in flames after I challenged his smug "PMC" friend/housemate's views on Trudeau, the Legacy media, and yes, the trucker protests.
This fellow worked in the media, and then for a union supporting the media, and is now doing some PR writing for a university. He's the alleged progeny of working-class parents, yet despite this, still referred to the protestors as "Nazi truckers". Before completely losing my mind, I tried to point out their unsuccessful efforts to arrange a meeting with JT, and stressed the fact that many of the protesters were receiving positive attention and support for the first time in their lives, and reminded him that the men and women attending these protests were hard-working folks, many of whom perform the dirty/dangerous/difficult jobs that literally keep Canadian society from crumbling into ruin. After repeating his spurious slur about the protestors, I'm ashamed to admit that my anger got the best of me. I said, "So you have proof that they're Nazis? Really? Like the ones who killed my grandfather at Auschwitz, and were responsible for irreparably damaging my father's life ..." At that point he cut me off, and muttered, "Eff you", while walking upstairs to his home office. At that moment I knew our relationship was kaput.
Many months of debates and heated back-and-forth between my boyfriend and I had culminated in this pathetic, horrible moment. You'll be proud to know that I never wavered from my position. Tears were shed, and far too much chocolate was consumed, yet I knew that dealing with people like this was ripping me apart. Even though my ex-BF agreed with me in principle, he was loathe to ditch 40 years of friendship for a passionate "Leftist anti-left" woman, who in his mind was agitating for the sake of agitation.
And yet ... nothing will make me acquiesce to the blank and often mean-spirited rabble of "nouveau-left wingers". I'm still dusting myself off, and will eventually embark upon the awkward search for a tribe of like-minded souls. With any luck I'll find an 'Introvert Leftist Anti-Left Association'. Kudos to Lean Out.
Good luck Gail. For the same reasons, I stay away from most of the people with similar points of view. It's funny how the "left", once proud of freedom of discourse and sticking to the facts, has become the lackey of mainstream media and mind viruses (Gad Saad).
Thank you. It's "uncomfortably" comforting to know that I'm not alone. I'm still trying to figure out whether acknowledging that things will only get worse is pessimistic, OR realistic.
Totally agree with you AND Gad Saad, who is a wonderful discovery by the way. Teasing out the notion that the left has morphed into the right, and vice-versa, has landed me in hot water on numerous occasions. I love Saad's description of, "The Ostrich Brigade", and labeling our PM JT as "The Kingpin of the Ostrich Brigade" is simply brilliant. I'll never forget standing at the corner of College and Bathurst Street in Toronto, questioning a friend who believed that Pierre Trudeau's notion of the "Ethnic Mosaic" was superior to the more American concept of the "Melting Pot". He was perplexed by my suggestion that the former theory translated to a chilly, "you-stay-over-there-and-do-what-you-do-and-good-luck-with-that" (or ghettoizing), rather than the more open-hearted and inclusive, "please-come-and-see-what-I-like-to-do-and-tell-me-about-yourself".
Perhaps I need to work up the courage to carve out a tiny space to accommodate like-minded souls. We definitely need more forums like this one, encouraging civilized and thoughtful discourse while discouraging character assassination. I'm grateful that I have a few people I can speak openly with, including a close friend who I've known for almost 51 years. Good luck to you too Doug, although you seem to have a solid grip on the situation. And thank you for (informally) introducing me to Gad Saad!
Yep, I never understood these on a practical level. For instance, no one at a university actually intends to give the land back to native people, or was directly involved in colonization in Canada, which happened in the East in the 17th and 18th centuries. It's just about feeling good.
What a fantastic interview! I wish it had gone on forever!
Any chance of a transcript?
Transcript please (for the visual rather than auditory types ) Cheers Raymond
First Adolph Reed and now Catherine Liu. I have been listening to her podcasts with Jacobin and became an instant admirer of the way she thinks. I will have to read her book, it sounds great. Looking forward to diving into Reed's book this weekend. Keep going Tara. This type of analysis is important. Also, you could do a deep dive into the transformation of the NDP into a PMC party rather than a worker party. At least that's what it seems has happened to me.
I'm an older person. I listen to the PMC's invalidating babble, and I immediately get the image of the old man Oz hiding behind his curtain, pulling levers, and completely unaware that his shim-sham has been revealed by the lowly Toto. Do you think that anyone in the PMC is aware that their insincerity is completely obvious? Or are they so full of themselves that they actually think they can piss on our heads and tell us it's raining?
As mentioned in other posts. I watched this same razzle dazzle happen to my husband last year at Canada's largest mental health hospital. 10 years ago that hospital was the only Canadian hospital to make it into the top 50 hospitals IN THE WORLD. This year, it can't even make it onto the list of top 300 places to work IN CANADA.
Style over substance does real damage to all of us.
BS Jobs by David Graeber captures this phenomenon well
Gentlemen, this was one of the snottiest self-congratulating exchanges I’ve seen in the comments. I would suggest giving the interview another listen. You may have missed the point.
You may have missed my other comment where I asked for a transcript. I have not listened to this interview, though I'm aware of both the concepts of the Professional Managerial Class and Bullshit Jobs.
They definitely overlap, but one can be PMC without having a bullshit job and/or have a bullshit job without being PMC. If you think that's a snotty and self-congratulating thing to say, I don't know what to tell you.
It’s a contextual thing. If you read the transcript of the interview and then reread your exchange, you may see my point. Honestly, I didn’t occur to me that people would be adding commentary without first having listened to (or read) the content. My bad.
Not everyone in the PMC has a bullshit job. I'm an accountant, which is definitely a PMC trade, but even Al Capone had a bookkeeper, which means accounting passes the black market test for not being a bullshit job.
In the black market world, enforcers/muscle fulfill pretty much the same role as lawyers do in the corporate world, so lawyers probably aren't bullshit jobs either.
The company I work at has a Director of Community Events - now THAT is a bullshit job if there ever was one.
Nah. Read the book. (Tainter too.) Symbol manipulators are an indicator of civilizational collapse.
If the black market will pay for certain symbol manipulation, then it must serve some fundamental purpose (money laundering being an exception, because the need is driven by hiding from regulation).
The market needs accountants, to neutralize the work of other accountants: the ones who create arcane rules !
A bullshit job typically consists of neutralizing the effect of other bullshit jobbers: lawyers, sales, marketing, etc.
symbol manipulators mostly "combat" against one another, over how zeros and ones will be flipped on a hard drive.
Kind of true, but most of those "arcane rules" are the result of businesses cooking their books to deceive either tax authorities or else their own investors. Every time a shady business cooks their books, a new rule gets written to crack down on it, and over time you end up with a convoluted labyrinth of rules.
Underneath the arms race that is creative accounting & regulation, however, money still needs to be tracked, which even the black market recognizes.
Agreed, not all white collar work is bullshit. Accounting, legal, sales, and investing have real metrics and results. The bullshit comes from HR, DEI, NGO, consulting aka power point making, etc.
I actually think investment advisory is a bullshit job - it's basically paying someone a fee to tell me whether they think I should bet on red or black.
So say you Mr. Accountant. Part of my investment advisor's value comes from telling me when to buy in or sell so called bet. And remember, we are not all educated in putting numbers on a report for businesses. Sometimes telling the uneducated what those numbers mean is of value too.
Fair enough, though an educated guess is still a guess at the end of the day. Your advisor doesn't KNOW whether buying or selling will pay off, he's just giving you his best guess.
Catherine Liu is fantastic!
Wow, I agreed with 99% of what Lui said. How did she ever get a full-time job as a professor? Where I work, she'd never get hired after critiquing the PMC in print. The only slight critique I would put on the table is that she seems to buy into the myth of the bogeyman of the right ready to turn America into a fascist tyranny. Instead, I see political ideology as existing as a series of points in a three-dimensional constellation, with many overlaps and confusions. There is no unalloyed "right" or "left" - we have to stop using the language of the woke if we want a reasonable conversation (e.g. stop saying "viewpoint diversity" and say instead freedom of speech and ideas, or rational debate).
Excellent interview. I may not agree with a Marxist solution but her analysis of the challenges we face is right on!
Victoria
… the appeal to other PMC people o appear virtuous… the indoctrination in action… prescriptive and performative gesture to secure status…
Thank you! Good to hear.
Very late to the party here, and thrilled to find so many like-minded souls. Must start by mentioning that Tara is incredibly brave to take on the CBC, and wonderfully wise for doing so in such an unimpeachable manner. Tara, if you ever decide to offer etiquette classes, sign me up! I digress.
Catherine Liu is a champion for those of who have been not-so-subtly pointing out class inequities for years, yet she has managed to maintain an enviable job, whereas I fall more into the flailing mess category. And while I agree with her in theory about keeping up the fight, my dogged determination to expose the hypocrisy of the elite has been disastrous for my social life. In fact, a four-year relationship with my very kind and caring boyfriend recently went up in flames after I challenged his smug "PMC" friend/housemate's views on Trudeau, the Legacy media, and yes, the trucker protests.
This fellow worked in the media, and then for a union supporting the media, and is now doing some PR writing for a university. He's the alleged progeny of working-class parents, yet despite this, still referred to the protestors as "Nazi truckers". Before completely losing my mind, I tried to point out their unsuccessful efforts to arrange a meeting with JT, and stressed the fact that many of the protesters were receiving positive attention and support for the first time in their lives, and reminded him that the men and women attending these protests were hard-working folks, many of whom perform the dirty/dangerous/difficult jobs that literally keep Canadian society from crumbling into ruin. After repeating his spurious slur about the protestors, I'm ashamed to admit that my anger got the best of me. I said, "So you have proof that they're Nazis? Really? Like the ones who killed my grandfather at Auschwitz, and were responsible for irreparably damaging my father's life ..." At that point he cut me off, and muttered, "Eff you", while walking upstairs to his home office. At that moment I knew our relationship was kaput.
Many months of debates and heated back-and-forth between my boyfriend and I had culminated in this pathetic, horrible moment. You'll be proud to know that I never wavered from my position. Tears were shed, and far too much chocolate was consumed, yet I knew that dealing with people like this was ripping me apart. Even though my ex-BF agreed with me in principle, he was loathe to ditch 40 years of friendship for a passionate "Leftist anti-left" woman, who in his mind was agitating for the sake of agitation.
And yet ... nothing will make me acquiesce to the blank and often mean-spirited rabble of "nouveau-left wingers". I'm still dusting myself off, and will eventually embark upon the awkward search for a tribe of like-minded souls. With any luck I'll find an 'Introvert Leftist Anti-Left Association'. Kudos to Lean Out.
Good luck Gail. For the same reasons, I stay away from most of the people with similar points of view. It's funny how the "left", once proud of freedom of discourse and sticking to the facts, has become the lackey of mainstream media and mind viruses (Gad Saad).
Sorry! I'm far too expansive, and will hopefully calm down now that I've found a few safe havens.
Thank you. It's "uncomfortably" comforting to know that I'm not alone. I'm still trying to figure out whether acknowledging that things will only get worse is pessimistic, OR realistic.
Totally agree with you AND Gad Saad, who is a wonderful discovery by the way. Teasing out the notion that the left has morphed into the right, and vice-versa, has landed me in hot water on numerous occasions. I love Saad's description of, "The Ostrich Brigade", and labeling our PM JT as "The Kingpin of the Ostrich Brigade" is simply brilliant. I'll never forget standing at the corner of College and Bathurst Street in Toronto, questioning a friend who believed that Pierre Trudeau's notion of the "Ethnic Mosaic" was superior to the more American concept of the "Melting Pot". He was perplexed by my suggestion that the former theory translated to a chilly, "you-stay-over-there-and-do-what-you-do-and-good-luck-with-that" (or ghettoizing), rather than the more open-hearted and inclusive, "please-come-and-see-what-I-like-to-do-and-tell-me-about-yourself".
Perhaps I need to work up the courage to carve out a tiny space to accommodate like-minded souls. We definitely need more forums like this one, encouraging civilized and thoughtful discourse while discouraging character assassination. I'm grateful that I have a few people I can speak openly with, including a close friend who I've known for almost 51 years. Good luck to you too Doug, although you seem to have a solid grip on the situation. And thank you for (informally) introducing me to Gad Saad!
She had me right until she called David Brooks an asshole. SRSLY?
An interesting listen. The class and economic comments are particularly of interest.
meow, thank you https://youtu.be/Wm1Sew7lAG4?t=121
Good point about land acknowledgments.
Yep, I never understood these on a practical level. For instance, no one at a university actually intends to give the land back to native people, or was directly involved in colonization in Canada, which happened in the East in the 17th and 18th centuries. It's just about feeling good.
The pointless class!
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/?r=raurr