Still, I think under the heading of "Know Your Enemy" it would be best to see their motives as simple belief in defending privilege. They don't have to be bribed to be pricks: they would do it for free if necessary. They believe i it. ==================================== I wonder how much first-hand knowledge Carrol has of such people. I met some in the trade unions and in the NDP, Canada's social-democratic party, where Obama would have felt at home. They were for the most part well-intentioned liberals and even self-professed radicals who believed it was more important to hold power to effect change, even modest change, than to merely talk about it. They were emphatically not interested in defending privilege but in curbing or eliminating it. Many began their careers as activists seeking to move their organizations in a more progressive direction.
Unfortunately, liberals and social democrats are rarely or only dimly aware of the constraints which the system places on those who hold power until they hold some measure of power themselves. They can then either challenge the system from within and be promptly replaced - or they can adapt, persuading themselves that whatever change they can deliver is better than no change at all, and that their consistuents would do even worse by the opposition returning to power. More commonly, of course, they opt for the latter, in part aided the perks and other attractions which help erode their early convictions. Anyone on this list who came to power electorally, even as the leader of an insurgent third party, would be confronted with the same dilemma. The only way to avoid it is to remain aloof from contemporary politics, as Carrol and and others, consciously or instinctively, choose to do.
The point is that the roots of "opportunism" and "betrayal" are institutional, not moral. Only a political innocent would see today's liberal leaders of mass organizations as simply "pricks" enthusiastically serving the ruling class who consciously started out with that in mind.