From a David Brooks NYT column about the malaise of self-doubt afflicting the country:
The shift away from commercial values has been expressed well by Michelle Obama in a series of speeches. “Don’t go into corporate America,” she told a group of women in Ohio. “You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. ... Make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry.” As talented people adopt those priorities, America may become more humane, but it will be less prosperous.
The First Lady has a weird way of putting her foot consistently in her mouth along these lines: making big chunks of what I consider to be America proper seem like they should be ashamed of themselves and what they do.
I have nothing against social workers: I've got a beloved brother who's been one all his life and my mom did something similar for many years and so did my spouse Vonne. I think it's a hugely honorable profession.
But I also think that businesspeople "work for the community" too. I believe that the vast majority of the money-making industry is also in the helping industry--to include LAWYERS! (the personal brag that she seems to be making here--as in, thank God I left that money-grubbing profession and became noble!).
I also am the child of two lawyers (Dad, all his adult life, Mom, in her later years), and both of them were very much in the helping profession. The moral arrogance on display here is off-putting in the extreme.
I must say, I find this demonization of American business to be bizarre, and to hear such things coming out of the mouth of the First Lady is truly distressing. For all her alleged brains, I wonder if she has a clue about most of America outside of her relatively narrow experience base (and frankly, that of her husband to boot).