Genius Princetonians Will Reform Wall Street by Working for Wall Street
No matter how many famous novelists in its employ, Princeton University is firstly a grooming school for bankers. With that in mind, the student-led Occupy Princeton has, for about a month now, protested (i.e., TERRORIZED) several recruitment events hosted by human rights organizations such as J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Which has struck many of the group’s betters as kind of . . . bizarre, yeah? Don’t these people want . . . money? And a summer property in an equatorial country? What else are we here for??
Fortunately, chipper Prince contributor Elise Backman ’15 and Prince columnist Aaron Applbaum ’14 have offered a time-tested solution to appeasing Occupy Princeton: Just work for Wall Street! Easy! You’ll fit right in!
It is true that the Princeton students of today traditionally become the Goldman partners of tomorrow, but chanting at them repetitively only serves to alienate them, not to change their minds.
Traditionally? Unless that awful Henry Moore sculpture is in fact a secret wormhole to Lower Manhattan, working for Goldman Sachs is about money, not one’s ride on the Long Orange Line.
Becoming more politically engaged and discussing fiscal policy, I believe, is the way to shift the dialogue and create the change sought after by the Occupy contingency. I see this as a way to alter, and break through our [in]famous complacency. This is not to say that Washington is exclusively at fault for New York’s behavior — both financiers and policy makers are to blame for their actions — but the two are inextricably tied and an opening for change right now lies in the political arena.
This is the counter-argument to the Occupy movement’s rather explicit charge that money has corrupted American politics? Unless Alan Greenspan recently rewrote several founding documents, no, “financiers” and politicians are not “inextricably tied.” Well, they are, of course. But that’s the problem, not an a priori truth.
And here’s Prince contributor Elise Backman, from January 11:
When I have tried to discuss Occupy Princeton with my friends affiliated and unaffiliated with the movement, at the first sign of a critique I am met more often than not with, “Oh, of course, you just want to go make money on Wall Street,” “Don’t you care about the economy at all?” or my favorite: “You’re so politically apathetic — how Princeton of you.” Are we all suddenly politically apathetic if we don’t support Occupy Princeton?
Oh yes, the very reasonable “friends” argument: my friends said something, so everyone thinks it. QED! But wait:
Since Occupy has come to Princeton, a student planning to work on Wall Street is “in the nation’s disservice,” is simply another hamster on the proverbial wheel. Occupy Princeton is, of course, entitled to its numerous opinions, but I ask whether they have ever considered the possibility of Princeton students planning to change Wall Street from the inside. Many of us do agree that the wealth gap in our country is a serious issue, and one that is related to the financial market. To that end, many are working toward their diploma and their Wall Street positions in an effort to learn how to execute reforms.
Princeton students might be scheming to change the financial industry from within? Like, what—Inception? That’s the plan?
It is kind of sweet that Backman believes that Wall Street is interested in finding new ways to regulate itself, however absurd that idea is. But even if an individual infiltrated Wall Street for the intent of exposing malfeasance, he would never have graduated from Princeton. This is obvious. Think about it: after such whistleblower’s face is inevitably splattered across DealBook or wherever, he could never attend Reunions again. Not because of regret or shame, but because he’d encounter, and be shunned by, at least forty of his former co-workers. To blow the whistle on Wall Street is to blow the whistle on Princeton itself. Is any Princeton alumnus willing to sacrifice his good standing for a principle (like justice)? Just a guess, but: no.