Thursday
"There’s something really quite joyous about a woman so ignorant of business that she bemoans the advertising, the commercialism, the specific slicing and dicing of the market to maximise the value of those ads, when that same woman’s salary is paid by the advertising, the very specific advertising in The Guardian’s jobs section for example, which is carried by the newspaper in which she writes."
- Tim Worstall, writing about comments from Zoe Williams, the Guardian writer.
I have a simple explanation for the issue that Tim confronts here: folk like Williams believe they are above the fray of grubby advertising, and are free of being persuaded by the evil, silent tricksters of the ad trade. But the unwashed plebs, with their love of glossy magazines, game shows and the rest, need to be protected by their betters, you see. Sometimes, it comes down to simple arrogrance of a mindset that is hostile to the idea to freedom, to the grubby, glorious vulgarities of the market. It is a mindset that is common to "liberal" Hampstead and High Tory Lake Poets in the early 19th Century.
A century ago, it was the fossilized aristocrats of Britain who recoiled in horror at the mere suggestion that they had made their pile by 'trade'.
Nowadays, it's the . . . . . .
Oh, look, did you see what I just did there?
llater,
llamas
Posted by llamas at September 30, 2010 12:54 PM
The Guardian Media Group has a large stake in the Auto Trader group of mags, so this woman is paid by profits from the used car trade just like Authur Daley.
Posted by Pete at September 30, 2010 02:26 PM
Do they still have that stake, Pete? I thought I heard they'd sold it recently. Although what keeps them afloat now if they did is anybody's guess.
Posted by Sam Duncan at September 30, 2010 02:54 PM
Do they still have that stake, Pete? I thought I heard they'd sold it recently.
The Guardian Media Group sold 49.9% in 2007, which I assume means they still own 50.1%, so its a fairly safe bet to safe that Zoe Williams and George Monbiot salary are paid from the proceeds of immorality.
Posted by TDK at October 1, 2010 09:55 PM
TDK - is that anything like "Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford" immorailty ?
Question: What do you get when you try to cross Lord Longford and Mary Whitehouse ?
Answer: Tired of waiting ...
Posted by Alasdair at October 2, 2010 12:27 AM
Those poets did not start of Tory folk (High Church or otherwise) - and, at base, they never were.
As for aristocrats being hostile to trade (or to science).
Normally (even in the 19th century) it was people who wanted to PRETEND to be artistocrats (or at least gentry) who made a great show of being hostile to trade and science.
Real "landed classes" people normally were not hostile to trade or science - their supposed hostility is a cultural myth, a very long standing myth (novels in the 19th century were based upon it), but still a myth.
Lord Salisbury (scientist and director of a major railway company - as well as bening Prime Minister) and co were not really like Guardianista types.
It is often forgotten that British economic development (the industrial revolution and so on) were NOT financed by the slave trade or "profits from empire" - the primary source of finance was the profits from British (actually English and Welsh) farming estates, the estates of rather rational people.
Their profits were saved and lent out (in those strange times borrowing depended upon savings) to people who were building up manufacturing enterprises and so on.
"But they still did not want factories near the lakes Paul" - yes, and nor do I.
People used their own money to preseve a part of the country they loved (a map of the Lake District is on the wall behind me as I type this) - nothing wrong with that.
No more than that it was wrong for Lord Salisbury to make sure the railway line (of the company he controlled) did not come too near Hatfield House.
It is also true that Conservatives (Tory or Whig) tended to be disgusted by the Wensleydale judgement (the ruling that denied tort action in the case of the pollution of the air), but I am disgusted by it also and for the same reason - it denies PROPERTY RIGHTS correctly understood (for they include the right of legal action against the pollution of air or water).
Posted by Paul Marks at October 4, 2010 12:36 PM
