Ben Adler at the New Republic writes:
In yesterday’s New York Times, Jason DeParle writes about the Heritage Foundation’s cushy summer internship program for young conservative activists and intellectuals. One sentence in particular stands out: “Katherine Rogers, a junior at Georgetown … is working in donor relations, which she thinks will be useful in her intended career as a pharmaceutical lobbyist.”
Yes, you read that correctly. The earnest young right-wing politico dreams not of a job where she learns new things every day, or grapples with ideas, or experiences the satisfaction of helping other people. She dreams of shilling for a self-interested corporation. And forget the political implications. What junior in college dreams of lobbying for the pharmaceutical industry?
This anecdote may appear to confirm the crudest stereotype about conservatives: that they are greedy. But it is also a reminder of something more disturbing: Many contemporary conservatives see no distinction between the interests of big business and conservative ideology. This crony capitalist conservatism, the sort of conservatism practiced by the Bush administration, isn’t true economic conservatism. A true economic conservative believes that government should not favor one company over another or one industry over another so as not to pervert the will of the free market. The pharmaceutical lobbyist, on the other hand, believes the government should favor her company or her industry regardless of whether it creates inefficiency in the economy as a whole. If this perversion of conservative ideals has taken hold even among the youngest members of the right, then what currently passes for economic conservatism is only going to grow even less intellectually honest in the years to come. On the plus side, though, the pharmaceutical industry should stay healthy.
Me: I don’t know jack about Katherine Rogers or, for that matter, Ben Adler, but I think he needs to get off the soapbox. Ms. Rogers’ ambition to become a lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry may or may not confirm liberal stereotypes about conservatives, but Adler’s diatribe certainly goes a long way to confirming them about some liberal journalists.
Does it not even occur to Adler that maybe Ms. Rogers believes the pharmaceutical industry helps people? It’s certainly saved more lives than The New Republic and National Review combined, then squared, then multiplied by millions. Adler should ask TNR senior editor Andrew Sullivan about the good things the pharmaceutical industry has done. Indeed, isn’t it possible that Ms. Rogers’ idealistic zeal includes the possibility that she thinks a free market conservative could work for the pharmaceutical industry in order to fight for lessening government control?
Adler asks, What college junior dreams of working for the pharmaceutical industry? (Gob-smacked italics his). Well, I know quite a few people who currently lobby for the pharmaceutical industry or have in the past. Sure, some have made compromises, but it’s simply an ignorant lie to suggest that these people as a group and by definition aren’t pretty dedicated to what they do at least in part for high-minded reasons. In my personal experience, they are probably more concerned with issues of principle and the good their clients do than, say, the sorts of trial lawyers so many collegiate liberals dream of becoming.
If Ms. Rogers interned at the Urban Institute and told the Times she wanted to work for the “self-interested” teachers’ unions, would I be free to pound the table about how all she wanted to do is trap our most talented poor kids in bad schools while she collected lavish benefits on the government teet?
Thanks to my friend Kevin Holtsberry for pointing this out.