Progressive Christians Uniting

Nomenklatura

Nomenklatura, a useful Russian word from the Soviet era meaning (approximately) “those with names,” or the people who matter. We should rehabilitate it for our own progressive purposes in 21st-century America, as we have now developed our very own nomenklatura who need not observe the usual rules and niceties the rest of us must live by. My feelings about this have grown as I have witnessed what Robert Reich once called the “secession of the successful” over the past 10 years. The very wealthy these days need never rub shoulders with the hoi polloi: everything for them is privatized. They have their gated communities, their private recreational haunts (never public parks or clubs), private schools and private tutors for their children, personal trainers, personal chefs, special skybox facilities at sporting events, $400 tickets for Broadway shows–the list of privileges is endless.

What is most interesting to observe these days is how various branches of government now collude in comforting the already comfortable by catering to their sense of entitlement. Just this week Los Angeles International Airport announced that valet parking will be available at Terminal 4, a new amenity that the airport estimates will generate $500,000 in revenues per year but will cost the airport $800,000 to provide. Because the airport is publicly supported, this means the rest of us are contributing to the carefree travel experience of people who can afford to pay $80 per day (or whatever) for valet service.

Also this week, the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) announced that it was ready to begin letting “pre-certified” travelers to cut the security line (no humiliating “shoes off” or wanding for them!) and walk right to the gate. Again, for a fee–but I am guessing that this preferred service for privileged people is likewise being subsidized by the rest of us.

Of course the really overprivileged members of America’s nomenklatura no longer bother with public airports or airliners at all: they go by Gulfstream. This morning’s New York Times carries an eye-popping story by Geraldine Fabrikant on the number of corporate executives (and retired executives!) who routinely use corporate jets for their personal business. Richard Parsons, CEO of Time-Warner, uses the company fleet to take him to his Tuscany vineyard at least twice a year. Parsons enjoyed a pay package of $16 million last year, so it’s not that he can’t afford to fly first class. But for people in big corner offices regular first-class air travel no longer suffices; it lacks the cachet of the Gulfstream IV. As one executive told the North Carolina state treasurer (who, as manager of the state’s pension funds, has been making a fuss about this practice), “You can fool around with my stock options all you want, but don’t fool around with my airplane.”

You may say that here, at least, there is no public subsidy involved. Guess again. Corporations write a significant amount of this largesse to executives off their taxes, but we-the-people also subsidize the Gulfstream set through the extra FAA costs associated with mushrooming private jet traffic at airports across the country.

In a rational world, members of Congress would be raising hell about this further instance of rot at the top of America’s corporate ladder. They are all but completely silent. Why? They often use corporate jets themselves, and the beauty part is that they only have to reimburse the jets’ owners for the equivalent of first-class air fare on a commercial jetliner.

All of this cossetting of overprivileged folks begins with a mindset that I think is essentially diseased and that certainly is as un-Christian as it can be. This mindset holds that the possession of great wealth and great privilege is somehow virtuous because it validates hard work and ambition and thus drives competitiveness and economic growth. I won’t cite chapter and verse that have the prophets and Jesus taking precisely the oppposite view. You can look it up.

Oh, and my roundup of the week’s plutocracy news would be incomplete unless I also mentioned that this is the week that both the House and Senate are expected to vote for a continuation of extra-low rates of taxation on capital gains. Eighty-two percent of the benefit of these low rates goes to the top 10% of taxpayers; more than fifty percent of the benefit goes to the top 1%. One Congressional observer said that he doubted the Democrats “would have the nerve” to try to block the continued gravy train for rich people. Indeed, those Congressional Democrats are too preoccupied with trying to snag a seat on the next corporate jet heading out of town to the next fundraiser, which, in the nature of things, will be designed to snag further corporate beneficences. Do you see how cozy this all is? And how utterly repulsive?? To be continued…

                                                                                   - Peter Laarman

Posted under: Director's Cut, Happening in the World