Politics of Crime and Economic Change

[Rakesh Bhandari]

mBS's number one concern is that the working class and its sympathizers are
losing faith in parliamentary politics and in particular those benevolent
wonks who put forth a "whole gamut of proposals" on the behalf of the
proletariat. He thinks that the loss of faith will be accelerated if those
wonks dare speak against the death penalty. So Max refuses to oppose the
death penalty while being paid to put forth that whole gamut of proposals,
which of course is roundly ignored and contemptuously dismissed by
America's statesmen. Dissed like that, Max wants to get tough and speaks
valiantly on behalf of frying people, no matter the irrationality,
ineffectiveness, bias and partiality, philosophical incoherence and
injustice of capital punishment.  The working class will rally behind that
tough Max, or so he thinks, and then those statesmen will have to listen to
his effete social democratic ideas.  Well, this sort of wonkish cynicism
unfortunately does have quite a bit of life left in it.

against cynicism or "cold hearted politics", rakesh