Dinesh D'Souza Quote
Obama’s claims about teachers and CEOs gets to a broader puzzle about how a capitalist society assigns rewards. At first glance, it seems that there is no relationship between merit and reward. Athletes and entertainers, who provide services much less indispensable than teachers and doctors, earn vastly more than either of those two professions. Earlier I mentioned the example of the parking lot guy who parks all the cars and makes money for the resort, yet he gets a pittance of that money. From his point of view, there is no relationship between work and reward. He does the work, and they get the profits. This is pretty much how workers feel in a variety of occupations. They are the makers and their bosses are the takers. In a truly fair and merit-based society, they should get more and the bosses should get less. These arguments are, whether their proponents recognize it or not, anchored in Karl Marx’s notion of surplus value. Marx is largely discredited today, because Communism proved a failure, and Marx’s prophecies proved dead wrong.
Obama’s claims about teachers and CEOs gets to a broader puzzle about how a capitalist society assigns rewards. At first glance, it seems that there is no relationship between merit and reward. Athletes and entertainers, who provide services much less indispensable than teachers and doctors, earn vastly more than either of those two professions. Earlier I mentioned the example of the parking lot guy who parks all the cars and makes money for the resort, yet he gets a pittance of that money. From his point of view, there is no relationship between work and reward. He does the work, and they get the profits. This is pretty much how workers feel in a variety of occupations. They are the makers and their bosses are the takers. In a truly fair and merit-based society, they should get more and the bosses should get less. These arguments are, whether their proponents recognize it or not, anchored in Karl Marx’s notion of surplus value. Marx is largely discredited today, because Communism proved a failure, and Marx’s prophecies proved dead wrong.
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About Dinesh D'Souza
Born in Mumbai to Catholic parents, D'Souza moved to the United States as an exchange student and graduated from Dartmouth College. He was a policy adviser in the administration of President Ronald Reagan and has been affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution. He became a naturalized citizen in 1991. From 2010 to 2012, he was president of The King's College, a Christian school in New York City, until he resigned after an alleged adultery scandal.
In 2012, D'Souza released the conspiracist political film 2016: Obama's America, an anti-Barack Obama polemic based on his 2010 book The Roots of Obama's Rage. He has since released five other conspiracist films: America: Imagine the World Without Her (2014), Hillary's America (2016), Death of a Nation (2018), Trump Card (2020) and 2000 Mules (2022). D'Souza's films and commentary have generated considerable controversy due to their promotion of conspiracy theories and falsehoods, as well as for their incendiary nature.
In 2014, D'Souza pleaded guilty in federal court to one felony charge of using a "straw donor" to make an illegal campaign contribution. He was sentenced to eight months incarceration in a halfway house near his home in San Diego, five years' probation, and a $30,000 fine. In 2018, D'Souza was issued a pardon by President Donald Trump.