Playwright and Director David Mamet Pens an Opinion Piece for the Wall Street Journal

What Is It About Brilliant, Intelligent Artists Like Mr. Mamet That Go All Squirrelly in the WSJ?

David Mamet  writes plays.  He directs plays.  He writes movies and he directs movies.  Good ones.  Maybe even great ones.  Certainly entertaining ones.  Now The Dismal Political Economists commented some months ago on an interview with Mr. Mamet in the Financial Times and his rabid conservative views.  Now Mr. Mamet has graced the op/ed pages of the Wall Street Journal with his thoughts.

Let’s leave aside for the moment the why and how of having a person totally and completely lacking in knowledge of economics, taxes, finance and political economy write an opinion pieces for a major newspaper.  The primary question is how can a person so literate for the stage and screen write such incomprehensible prose when it comes to economics, politics and policy. 

Mr. Mamet for example is outrageously offended by a daughter who observes that her father has unraveled a sushi roll, showing in the daughter’s mind disrespect for the maker of the sushi. (A not uncommon Oriental observation, but not a particularly important one in the scheme of things)  This is something the rest of us, that is, those of us in the rational world would observe and move on.  For Mr. Mamet it is the great example of what he thinks is wrong with society.

 Here is just an example of what Mr. Mamet says.

And I did not say, but wondered, what of respect for the poor father, who had, not incidentally, worked for the money to buy the California roll and, sorrowfully, for the money to send the young woman off to college to fill her head with trash?

How had the young Stalinist come to assume the mantle of Upholder of All Things Good;

Stalin was a murderous dictator, the daughter merely a commentator on how to eat sushi.  And somehow, this causes Mr. Mamet to focus on taxes, although the connection can only come from a mind more irrational than any normal person.  It seems Mr. Manet is against having taxes altogether!

For, the more I think about it, the more the question of taxes is central to that of liberty in general. For the question is: Who is to run the country? Is it to be run by its citizens, free to exchange goods and services for mutual benefit, or by the government, increasing both its powers and its corruption by the ability to tax?

which then generates this true bit of non-writing

And who would be these Solons who would run our government, but the good-willed and otherwise unemployable, content to suck at the government tit, and spout trash for a living—e.g., that one may disrespect an absent sushi chef by an incorrect method of eating his California roll, or that a proportion of races in the workplace differing from the proportion of races in the populace at large is de facto evidence of discrimination?

Okay, Mark Antony expounding to the Romans it’s not.  But we finally get to tax policy

Cut taxes and these intellectual wards of the state will have to find a method of support that actually fulfills a need. Cut taxes and the "special interests" will have no incentive to bribe or "support" a candidate to the tune of a fortune, for the candidate, if elected, will have no ability to repay the bribe.

This is certainly a first for this observer of the political scene.  Of all the arguments to cut taxes, this is the first time The Dismal Political Economist has ever seen the rational expressed that it will eliminate bribery by special interests.  He is glad to have read this however, like Haley’s Comet, it is was a great disappointment and he doubts if he will ever see it again.

So The Dismal Political Economist must once again renew his plea to Mr. Mamet.  Please sir, write more plays and movies and write no more of economics and politics.  In that way you can bring joy to all of us, and eliminate at least a small portion of our sorrow.