Capitalism as performance art: the fake rich girl scandal

Comment published on New York Times online blog in response to news article, ”A Fake Heiress Called Anna Delvey Conned the City’s Wealthy. ‘I’m Not Sorry,’ She Says,” May 10, 2019:

Fascinating story.  It's almost as if what she did is a kind of performance art, a stunt with a message.  

It is also a long sentence for what she did.  Her wealthy and corporate victims could just be paid back, and continuation prevented by public exposure.  But it also seems like more than just another crime.  And the meaning of her act does not really turn on a morality of motive. What she did was eloquent even if it was not her intent to be. Performance art typically straddles an unclear divide between reality and artifice, as it tries to provoke us to think about aspects of our social life that we took for granted.

Presumably, no one can blame her for wanting what she wanted.  Her insouciance seems principled enough that she cannot be called sociopathic.  And while most financial and business criminals are only trying to get rich, she seemed at least as interested in trying to make some point.  And it may be an interesting one.  

Of course, the moral is that if you are going to get rich by taking advantage of other people, even lying to them, it's best to do it within the law, and maybe to exploit only victims who are poor, not rich.  

Business and crime have always been close cousins.  This may be more blatant in her native Russia, but it is obvious everywhere.  

Society has several sets of norms: democratic interpersonal norms, and norms governing action that are moral, legal, or just those of business.  Business norms are not moral and only marginally legal; the significance of law for business is to define certain opportunities and risks.  Business is about success, not justice; it's about artfully getting what you want. 

Why not free her in return for some of the proceeds from the sales of her promised books?  Let's hope she writes them.  

Gov. Cuomo should reduce or commute her sentence.

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p.s. Interestingly, she said she is “not a good person.”  Why should she be, if her stated motive was success in business (and an unstated one perhaps to reveal something about that)?  Morals may not apply here.  If she was a “native” American and not Russian, maybe she could run for President when she gets out.  There is ample evidence now that that office does not require (what surely has becoming increasingly scarce in our late capitalist world) “a good person.”