The Audacity Of Publishing

Timothy Egan, feeling the need to vent his under paid & under appreciated spleen, unleashed in his column a diatribe against...anybody?...anybody?...Buellor?...Sarah Palin. No, not really. Against Joe The Plumber.
Joe The Plumber's newest sin? Why, having the temerity to write a book.
Mr Egan, he will have you know, takes professional exception at this.

The relevant invective is as follows:
-"I don't want you writing books."
-"Most writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty [I guess he doesn't know Stephen King], tyring to say one thing well and true. Day in , day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush's dog getting a book deal."
-"The idea that someone who stumbled into a soundbite can be published, and charge $24.95 for said words, makes so many real writers think the world is unfair.
-"Stop soaking up precious advance money."

Then he takes a swipe at Sarah Palin.

Now, all this phlegm and fury is meant not only to belittle Joe The Plumber, but to accuse him of wrongfully appropriating what by right should belong to Mr Egan, and those of his calling.

Why?

Because he's an anti-capitalist, that's why.

Ludwig von Mises:
The Resentment of the Intellectuals:
"It is the same with many lawyers and teachers, artists and actors, writers and journalists, architects and scientific research workers, engineers and chemists. They, too, feel frustrated because they are vexed by the ascendancy of their more successful colleagues, their former school fellows and cronies. Their resentment is deepened by precisely those codes of professional conduct and ethics that throw a veil of comradeship and colleagueship over the reality of competition.
To understand the intellectual's abhorrence of capitalism one must realize that in his mind this system is incarnated in a definite number of compeers whose success he resents and whom he makes responsible for the frustration of his own farflung ambitions. His passionate dislike of capitalism is a mere blind for his hatred of some successful "colleagues."

In other words, Get over it!

Gotta love those Austrian economists.