Aside from my facetious post about everyone refusing to stick it to the man, I can't really see how I'm being condescending towards you unless you are really taking what I'm arguing completely personally. Of course I think it's legitimate to have different views on economics and ideology, and moreover, what is and isn't going to benefit you personally. And your particular decision-making process here is perfectly reasonable. Sure, this discussion started out with you saying that for you, recruiting behavior and maybe even working conditions were not your priority. I pointed out some reasons why I thought that it might not be in most associates' interest to think that way, including yourself, but when it became clear that this didn't apply to your specific situation for the reasons you've outlined I thought I was clear that I had moved on to a more general point.
In the same vein, I feel like maybe you've taken offense to my general use of the term false consciousness, which certainly wasn't directed to your situation specifically anyway so I've consistently found your anger sort of confusing. It was more prompted by a) Wally's bleeding heart assessment of the misery of being a partner, and b) the idea that generally firms' treatment of associates is all of a sudden not objectionable once we find any economic justification, and that this is actually good for associates as a group.
And I feel like I've been arguing the latter point with you this whole time when you've really been thinking about your personal situation and were not necessarily saying that in the first place (or even now, since you've disagreed with my characterization of your view as pure capitalism)? Because yes, the way you describe your situation in the second to last post, general operation of firms + corporations that way does align quite neatly with your particular interests and career goals. You have to admit, though, that your situation is unique, to the point that it's really not universalizable. It doesn't really have much bearing on whether economic concerns morally justify firm behavior in general, or whether firms/partners' authority or importance is unchallengeable. It simply explains why you specifically are in support of the way things are -- because it's to your benefit, which also coincides with your ideology (of course this also can be see as benefit). Conversely, a critique of the validity of the system in general doesn't mean that you're wrong in supporting it or don't understand your own situation.
As for the inefficiency that the billable hour system promotes, that wasn't addressing the point that less ideal working conditions can be more efficient. It was pointing out that purely capitalistic systems don't consider efficiency an inherently valuable end goal -- profit occupies that position, and efficiency often, but not always, serves that. So the fact that capitalism is more efficient (or productive) than other economic systems is a function of the fact that they're usually related to profit. So in some contexts, capitalism wouldn't be more efficient or productive than other economic systems -- it would be more of whatever is more profitable in that context. The point of that whole discussion was that it seemed to me that you were endorsing capitalism for reasons that aren't within its central tenets. But this point is sort of moot if you aren't endorsing pure capitalism, I suppose.
And yeah, we do disagree about whether the system could be as efficient with less cost to the human participants. Or at least that the efficiency loss would be minimal. So to me, justifying the human cost by pointing to what I see as a small(er) loss of efficiency, even if some individual actors benefit and not all of those actors are in management . . . I don't know, this just leaves me nonplussed, and it's this idea that's really ruffled my feathers.
I don't know, I suppose that maybe you see my incredulousness about this as condescending not to you, necessarily, but to associates/law students as a group. To that I don't really have an answer except that you're probably right, because I think most people are idiots and make bad choices. But I don't think these things about you, least of all in this context, so I feel bad that I've offended you.
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