Listening to the rhetoric of populism and radical egalitarianism Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, UC Berkeley, and unnamed other campuses are exploring setting up joint graduate programs with some Saudi Arabian universities that segregate, Jim-Crow-style, students by sex and discourage participation by Jews. Money apparently trumps all even at the centers of political correctness. Michelle Obama gives lectures urging avoidance of the corporate world, though she worked there once, and her third of a million dollar salary at the University of Chicago is no small potatoes. Hillary’s current populism doesn’t extend to Bill’s mega-corporate speaking fees or Chelsea’s job in hedge funds-compensation made possible by the sort of wide-open, freewheeling, free-trading marketism that she is apparently lamenting in Ohio. John Edwards crashed and burned in part because his past corporate employment, elite corporate tastes, and high-speaking fees were at odds with his blue-jeans rhetoric.

The wonder is not that our elites in academia, politics, and social work appreciate the good life, but that their tastes and practices are so at odds their creed, especially in this campaign age of populism. The contrast is such that it demands an explanation? Only elites of the Left can battle the right-wing conglomerate? Why should liberals not enjoy the fruits of their corporate labors? Enough capital ensures that high taxes and income redistribution won’t imperil those who enjoy the good life? The populism/political correctness is just another trope in a crowded field?