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Revolutionaries for Capitalism
| Article
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18555 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1991 |
2,145 Words |
| Author
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Andrei Bogolubov
Andrei Bogolubov is a public relations executive who advises
corporations on communications strategies. He formerly was
press secretary at the Department of Interior. |
The most extraordinary meeting Ye Jian attended during his tour of duty in Washington, D.C., took place on a summer evening in 1988 at the plush downtown offices of a respected public policy institute. An embassy official of the People's Republic of China Ye had addressed groups of professionals before, but he wasn't expecting this kind of scene.
The vast conference table was littered with Domino's Pizza boxes, beer bottles, and cans of soda. Around the table, many "power ties" were loosened and suit jackets discarded. The host introduced each of the fifty people around the room in a rapid-fire monologue peppered with wise cracks. "You're on the Senate Finance Committee staff. Right? That's OK, Congress is out of session, so we don't have to check our wallets." A chorus of laughs, retorts, and groans filled the room.
For Ye, the contrast with the staid Washington events he was used to was more than a matter of style. Here he was, a Marxist, talking economics at the invitation of the Prosperity Caucus, a bipartisan group of intellectuals devoted to developing supply-side solutions to the world's economic problems.
Ye Jian was being exposed to a unique Washington phenomenon. Amid the city's countless networking breakfasts, speaker luncheons, and conferences, the Prosperity Caucus stands out as a hybrid creature whose members can work like establishment types but thing like revolutionaries in pursuit of prosperity.
The four hundred Caucus members include executive branch staffers, Capitol Hill aides, lobbyists, business people, and a smattering of journalists and academics. They tend to be young (the average age is under forty), cerebral and committed to having an impact. The journalists, from the Wall Street Journal and other papers, come to the meetings to find out what is really going on behind closed doors in the offices represented. Caucus members are sufficiently committed to finding solutions that they often put aside ego or partisan considerations in order to put their heads together to develop new ideas.
They meet once a month in conference rooms arranged by members. Tracking their monthly hopscotch across the nation's capital hints at the group's scope and access. The White House, the Dirksen Senate Office Building, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a variety of federal agencies and think tanks, and the Japanese Embassy have all hosted the
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