Adding to the below, DD could make the same defense of MSNBC and CNN. Adversarialism is a formal system. The fiasco today was driven by ratings, and by mindless reflex.

DD, in a series of comments on a post by Quiggin, defending bankers, as usual, by saying they were only following the logic of their job.

He repeats a question defined by another commenter.

I think the question is best framed as “what made mostly Anglo elites increasingly prefer finance as the main means of extracting their share of the common pool?”

I’m honestly not sure what I could say to put this more clearly. A policy of:

a) real wage stagnation as a consequence of outsourcing and trade agreements + China

b) government investment reduction

c) demand management by expansionary monetary policy

Is, de facto, a policy of financial sector expansion.

He's mocked by most of the others, as he deserves to be, for ignoring all the work that went into changing or eliminating the laws that governed financial regulation.

Redirecting the question: What made mostly Anglo elites increasingly prefer ideas as the main means of extracting their share of the common pool?

All that is solid melts into air. Philosophers' concepts are called objects. Writers of financial contracts are called financial engineers. The exemplary ideas of mediocre minds.

Arendt is very good on all of this, including the anti-politics of political philosophy.

Zardoz is a parable of the rule of Bloomsbury bohemians.