THE LEFTIST KID

Years ago, when the writer was a staff member for a well-known professional services firm, every autumn featured in influx of recruits from various universities within and beyond the immediate area. Consequently, a good deal of semi-idle office time would always be devoted to getting acquainted with new fellow workers.

One such recruit, who is still rather well remembered, quickly became labeled as a “veering-to-the-left” type, which happened to be a rare breed in that sort of business environment. We’ll call him Raymond Burke for purposes of this piece, although only the first initials actually match. To offer a very slight hint, his real name was identical to that of a Detroit Lions and LA Rams defensive tackle from years back.

Since most of Raymond’s staff associates tended to lean toward the right in their political thinking, the general attitude was to write him off as more or less a joke. Still, among his fairly frequent opinionated outpourings, one remains vividly in the writer’s mind to this very day.

On the subject of major industrial companies falling into the supergiant class, he once stated somewhat emphatically that “bigness unto itself is evil”. In other words, only small business deserved respect. Everyone smirked at this, with the customary headshake that deemed the kid to be a real kook.

However, many decades later, following a period during which the writer found himself growing gradually more mature on numerous matters, that outspoken comment by young Raymond has never been forgotten. Nowadays, particularly in light of such affairs as Enron, AIG, Citibank, General Motors, and so many others in the news, the feeling clearly lingers to the effect that the fellow was absolutely right in his well-remembered observation. Perhaps this amounts to an overblown generalization, but we find it to have plenty of truth in principle.