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Abuse of Power: 2
Book by Newfield, Jack, Dubrul, P.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 8, 2024
Found this on a brownstone stoop being given away and it literally fell apart as I read through it. It also took me forever to finish.
A pretty comprehensive but somewhat scattered diatribe against the exploitation of NYC’s taxpayers and lower classes by an elite group of real estate moguls, lawyers, politicians, and bankers, specifically at the time of the book’s writing (the early to mid 1970s). Because it’s somewhat bottled in its own time, and meant for audiences from its time, it gets a bit droll reading about all the granular failures of budget balancing, all the instances of legal graft, all the manipulations of the bond market, all the instances of profit-driven overdevelopment, every goddamn name of the overlapping circles involved in these rackets, but its excesses in detail also make its proclamation of a “permanent government” pretty undeniable, and make it all the more clear that the shape of current-day New York is motivated by these same corporate interests and dynastic families, at the expense of the vast majority of people. The destruction of rent-control, the waste of un-used vacant space, monopoly of Con Ed, destruction of neighborhoods, lack of tax collection from wealthy corporations and real estate owners, and the legacy of redlining are still very essential problems today, and seemingly have not gotten any better since this time. At the very least, the story of Co-Op City’s successful rent strike and Charles Rosen’s commitment to leading his community to take control of their own finances and re-instate fair rent prices is an inspiring one. Refreshing after being pummeled by facts and figures showing the rotten core of New York’s economy and political system. I think this quote from the final chapter (on “solutions”) sums it up, surprisingly poetically:
“Democratizing and limiting the extraordinary power of banks will obviously be a difficult task. But since Sisyphus is one of our political heroes, we believe that the effort must be made. ‘The struggle itself… is enough to fill a human heart,’ Camus wrote. ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’”
A pretty comprehensive but somewhat scattered diatribe against the exploitation of NYC’s taxpayers and lower classes by an elite group of real estate moguls, lawyers, politicians, and bankers, specifically at the time of the book’s writing (the early to mid 1970s). Because it’s somewhat bottled in its own time, and meant for audiences from its time, it gets a bit droll reading about all the granular failures of budget balancing, all the instances of legal graft, all the manipulations of the bond market, all the instances of profit-driven overdevelopment, every goddamn name of the overlapping circles involved in these rackets, but its excesses in detail also make its proclamation of a “permanent government” pretty undeniable, and make it all the more clear that the shape of current-day New York is motivated by these same corporate interests and dynastic families, at the expense of the vast majority of people. The destruction of rent-control, the waste of un-used vacant space, monopoly of Con Ed, destruction of neighborhoods, lack of tax collection from wealthy corporations and real estate owners, and the legacy of redlining are still very essential problems today, and seemingly have not gotten any better since this time. At the very least, the story of Co-Op City’s successful rent strike and Charles Rosen’s commitment to leading his community to take control of their own finances and re-instate fair rent prices is an inspiring one. Refreshing after being pummeled by facts and figures showing the rotten core of New York’s economy and political system. I think this quote from the final chapter (on “solutions”) sums it up, surprisingly poetically:
“Democratizing and limiting the extraordinary power of banks will obviously be a difficult task. But since Sisyphus is one of our political heroes, we believe that the effort must be made. ‘The struggle itself… is enough to fill a human heart,’ Camus wrote. ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’”
June 14, 2012
My dad wrote this book in 1977!
http://theicarusproject.net/paul-dubr...
http://theicarusproject.net/paul-dubr...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews