A Gang of Four of Our Very Own

During the disastrous Chinese Cultural Revolution, day-to-day governmental policy, ostensibly under the control of Mao Zedong, was largely determined by an extreme leftist faction that became known as the Gang of Four.  By their effective control of the Communist Party, these four individuals were largely responsible for the turmoil that characterized China’s decade-long period of despair.  Within a month after Mao’s death, the gang was overthrown, the Cultural Revolution reputiated, and order gradually restored.

The analogy of the Great Recession, with its accompanying hardships, to the Cultural Revolution’s incalculable miseries is, needless to say, imperfect but the term, “Gang of Four,” somehow strikes me as relevant.  When our downturn is comprehensively analyzed and its history written, I believe the four groups below will stand out as its preeminent malefactors:

•  governmental officials of both parties
• the legal profession, principally trial lawyers
• unions, particularly the teachers’, the public sectors’, and the autoworkers
• Wall Streeters.

Granted a number of other organizations contributed their share to the debacle, but in most cases their influence was limited by opposing forces.  However, no such opposition interfered with the activities of the four prime perpetrators I’ve identified.  Thanks to a flawed system, a somnambulant press, and governmental connivance, they were allowed to run rampant garnering fat profits along the way.

It is too much to hope that, as in China, a coup d’etat will ensure that our Gang of Four villains get their just deserts, but, were they so designated, their victims would have at least the mean gruel of moral satisfaction.