Must-Read: Erik Loomis: Ideology Creators of the New Gilded Age

…I am surprised however that one of them is Eric Hobsbawm’s daughter…. Everyone knows that networking is in fact how people get jobs and how class distinctions get reinforced…. The problem is that rising in life because of who you know is pretty objectively a bad thing…. Selling the idea that networking is awesome and should be embraced is deeply problematic on a number of levels… repackaged bootstrapism. The finest will rise and the less competent of the elite will fall…. It’s all about elite, elite, elite in this article. What about those who aren’t elite?… And now for the winner:

Ironically, there’s a bootstrapping, almost American aspect to how Hobsbawm got here. Her father, Eric Hobsbawm, was a Marxist historian and one of the most renowned scholars of the 20th century, but young Julia didn’t excel in school. She credits her success to working harder than her more academically-gifted peers, taking on tasks they wouldn’t do, and refusing to coast on her last name. Some people think “there is a shortcut and you just ring the most powerful person on that Rolodex,” she says, but it’s not that simple, “and that’s a good thing.”’

Ha ha ha ha ha…. As we were just told, the British understand how to succeed because of their class system so now let me, scion of one of the most famous intellectuals in the world during the second half of the twentieth century, tell you, Oregon mill worker’s son, how to succeed in life through hard work and networking. Well, somehow I’m not buying any of this…