Expository writing. Hegemonic Elitism and Globalization

Expository writing
02-10-2019
Hegemonic Elitism and Globalization
Today, everyone in school desires to get a good job with a good salary and to fit right in with the current crop of the employed. It is easy to blame students with such desires because their goals appear to coincide with the current status quo. However, it is crucial to consider the influences of the society towards the independent choices and decisions students are making today. It is widely and loudly said that those who are cut from a different clothe make it in life today. These people are the ones running the world and spearhead the capitalistic approach to life. Karen Ho’s essay titled Biographies of Hegemony: The Culture of Smartness and the Recruitment and Construction of Investment Bankers speaks to the current propagation of a society that only has room for the smart. As the article indicates, these individuals are made to think that they are the only ones capable and gifted enough to run the world. However, as Naomi Klein indicates, these individuals often have led to the creation of a corrupt society that only focuses on profits. Klein notes that these individuals while working for predominant institutions in Wall Street, seem to be the main obstruction towards the development of alternative models for energy production and consumption. But, having already been surrounded by rhetoric that reinforces this group’s elitist status, the world is left at a disadvantage. So, while combining the ideas of Klein and Karen Ho, this article seeks to showcase that the ideas of profit accumulation and global prowess are reinforced culturally and institutionally.
The rhetoric that there is a special group of people in the world is not a new phenomenon. During the slavery period, Africans received the worst of it all because as per the world’s rhetoric, they did not look smart. Their color distinguished them and thus they were only good for menial jobs while being constantly reminded of their inferiority. Today, things have changed, and now, it is the poor who are constantly being reminded of their inferiority and place in the world. In her article, Karen Ho makes the point that it is only those who distinguish themselves that have a chance of survival in today’s capitalistic world. However, she takes a step further and makes it clear that even while in school, this group is made to feel special and different. The belief is that they are being prepared for Wall Street, and as Karen Ho writes, not everyone has the chance to make it to Wall Street but this special breed. In the words of Kate Miller, working in Wall Street means working with “the brightest people in the world. These are the greatest minds of the century” (Ho, 39). However, as Ho indicates this ‘culture of smartness’ is a crucial factor towards understanding how the world is currently empowering a crop of individuals to enact policies and spearhead the globe’s economic agenda. The culture of smartness is not limited to America only as Ho writes. It is not “simply a quality of Wall Street, but a currency, a driving force productive of both profit accumulation and global prowess” (Ho, 40). This culture is simply a way of gifting a select few the power to concoct and enact policies that shape the entire world, and “serve as models for far-reaching socioeconomic change” (Ho, 40).
The power as described above is one that puts this crop of individuals at the center of the world’s policies. However, as often said, ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ and for this crop of individuals, absolute power does corrupt. It is this power that brings together Karen Ho and Naomi Klein’s articles. In Ho’s article, she focuses on how this elite group ends up on Wall Street and other institutions of influence. While quoting one of the correspondents of her article, Ho writes that “Harvard students are the best business people because you can give them any problem and they will be the ones to come up with the solution most quickly” (51). However, ...