On the Verge of Saying Something
March 18th, 2009 | Published in Communication, Slop
In 1941, Simon and Schuster of New York published a non-fiction work titled “Men of Wealth” by author John T. Flynn. The book was an ambitious project in that it attempted to summarize Flynn’s complex perspective on twelve of the world’s great economic success stories.
Flynn’s narrative style comes across as sincere, reverent, and frustrated. I’d argue that he deserves a flattering interpretation; his tone invokes a heavily labored revisionist tract, and the end result is human and endearing.
Here’s Flynn describing the role of wealthy businessmen in the wake of the first great US market crash:
“The process was completed when in October, 1929, we heard Gabriel over Wall Street and the President, as that fateful premonitory shiver ran through our economic structure, summoned around him the College of Captains. At that moment, every phase of our life was in the hands of businessmen. The test for their power was at hand and, led by a great engineer and great industrial ministers of state, these bankers and manufacturers and utility magnates were to seize the depression in its infancy and crush it. In that hour the Great God Business might be said to have become supreme, even though the very earth shook under the images of the idol.”
Flynn seemed on the verge of saying something important about theories of prosperity and governance. Perhaps his message was obscured by his great determination to express himself dramatically. Or was the message obscure by design?
