Re: “The Quiet Coup” by Simon Johnson published in the May 2009 edition of The Atlantic [thanks, PPG]

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? ‘Tis state capture, and apparently, the US is the epitome of the highest, most sophisticated form of this situation. Johnson brings to ultraviolet exposure the malaise that haunts the US political economic system – one that we had hitherto thought was solely in the realm of the emerging market economy.

The state is captured by violence (crudest political system), money (emerging market economies), and lobbying (more developed systems) in less evolved forms. The US state, however is captured by an entire worldview: one where utopia is populated by “large financial systems and free-flowing capital”.

This makes sense – and how was this uncovered? Through a change in perspective.

Talk about Gramscian hegemony. While the capitalist West and “knowledge” multilateral institutions were busy doublespeaking to the lands that oligarchs called home, they did not notice the oligarchs amassing in their own back yard – legitimized through neo-classical economic theory and intertwined like ivy leaves into the trellis of the system through that porous membrane between corporate desks and public bureaus.

I wonder what John Gray has to say about all this.