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| May | 02 |
| 2006 |
If the names Ansell, Michelle, Paul and Ruth mean nothing to you, then you might be part of the problem. The same problem, that is, as represented by J. K. Galbraith.
Professor Galbraith, who died on Saturday, wrote that “The greater the wealth, the thicker will be the dirt”, a sentiment echoed throughout his oeuvre. Given his distrust of men and women in business, he might easily have been British.
The notion that commerce is a somewhat shameful activity, the almost exclusive preserve of beings with lesser morals, has long held sway in sections of British society.
Until the Big Bang in 1986, even the big cheeses in the City shared a similar notion. The leading City institutions were headed by a class that saw its role as heading off the excesses of commerce and holding its nose when dealing with tradesmen.
The old City has long since disappeared, and has given way to the pursuit of profit. But the idea that commerce is uncivilised, and little more than the necessary evil that ensures that food and other goods are made available, nonetheless still holds sway in influential parts of society.
Among left-liberal types, any expressed admiration for business leaders is viewed as a sign of wrong-headedness. When Tony Blair told an interviewer that “It’s amazing how many of my friends I was in school and university with ended up so rich”, he was pilloried for, as The Guardian put it sneeringly, “his admiration for the rich”.
As for the BBC, the home of bien-pensant clichés: Jeff Randall, the BBC’s former business editor, has spoken of how “they treated business as if it was a criminal activity”.
Back to Ansell, Michelle, Paul and Ruth. They are a huge sign of hope. Not because of any personal merit (they are a pretty dismal bunch) but because, as the remaining contests in The Apprentice (the penultimate programme is at 9pm tomorrow night), they represent the triumph of business over British snobbery.
Even the BBC has been unable to resist the popular success of The Apprentice, despite tucking it away on BBC Two. It portrays business not as the work of the devil but as intriguing and captivating. And if just one viewer decides to set up a business, The Apprentice will have done more good for the country than any nature film or biased news analysis.
MessageSpace
Galbraith had one characteristic you will never have-common sense.
It won't be Paul. Sir Alan doesn't like nice people. And what has Ansell actually done? Michelle looks flaky. That bottle of champagne may have done for her. BUT has Ruth blown it by not reading the rules last week? Time will tell, but she's edging closer.
Another interesting thing to point out is the lack of pro-business fiction. There are plenty of films and novels about corporate corruption but few where business is presented positively. Neville Shute is a shining exception to this rule.
So is Henry Green - although much too subtle an artist to be called "pro business", the depiction in "Living" of the life of a factory is far from isn't-this-terrible agitprop.
Galbraith was responsible for the wonderful saying "if you've grown up on a farm, nothing afterwards seems like work."
Tony Blair's problem with wealth is that he honours the money, not the graft that earned it.
The best way to win an argument with lefties is to get them a proper job and make them pay taxes.
James' point reminds me of the old definition of a neo-conservative - "a liberal who has just been mugged"
Henry Green (aka HV Yorke of Pontifex) inherited the MD-ship of a family business making brewing equipment, and almost ran it in the ground by writing novels and drinking during office hours. 'Living', which draws on his brief traineeship on the shop floor in Brum, was his only work with a commercial setting.
The last straw was when Green brought in his fellow intellectual and toper Goronwy Rees, after he had had to resign from University College, Aberystwyth's principalship for selling sensationalised stories about Burgess and McLean to The People. Rees's experience of industry was zilch. The other board members forced Green into premature retirement and he spent his last years blocked, tearful and sozzled, so smelly that his friends would cross the street to avoid him.
Business and letters rarely mix. Wallace Stevens is the only conspicuous exception that springs to mind.
Other business/art crossovers that spring to mind - Charles Ives, Roy Fuller. I'm sure there are others.
Charles Ives wasn't a 'creative' writer, though he wrote insurance textbooks. His music to these ears sounds the worst kind of bombastic dissonant caterwauling. Roy Fuller was the long-serving solicitor to the Woolwich Building Society, but his poetry does not seem to be standing the test of time like Larkin's or Betjeman's.
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