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photo by Stephanie Morgan photo by Johnathan Gooch
The Gadfly
02 The student newspaper of St. John’s College 60 College Avenue Annapolis, Maryland 21401 sjca.gadfly@gmail.com Founded in 1980, the Gadfly is the student newsmagazine distributed to over 600 students, faculty, and staff of the Annapolis campus. Opinions expressed within are the sole responsibility of the author(s). The Gadfly reserves the right to accept, reject, and edit submissions in any way necessary to publish a professional, informative, and thought-provoking newsmagazine. The next Gadfly meeting will take place Sunday, November 10, at 7 PM in Room 109 on the first lower level of the BarrBuchanan Center.
!"#$%&%'(&")*% +,-%.(&/01(22%!1#"3* Have you always wanted to be recognized for the awesomeness of your facial hair? Now is your chance. The Gadfly will be holding a No Shave November competition, open to all members of the Polity. Participants should email sjca.gadfly@gmail.com with a camera photograph (no cell phone pics, please) of their baby-smooth faces as of November 1. At the end of the month, please send us another! Entrants must be clean-shaven on November first in order to qualify for the competition. Once we have end-of-month photos in, we will post the results on our Facebook page and open the competition to a Polity vote. We will publish the results in our final issue of the semester. In addition to eternal glory, the winner will receive a free straight-edge shave, courtesy of the Capistrano Barbershop on Maryland Avenue.
Articles should be submitted by Friday, November 8, at 11:59 PM to sjca.gadfly@ gmail.com. Staff Nathan Goldman • Editor-in-Chief Ian Tuttle • Editor-in-Chief Hayden Pendergrass • Layout Editor Sasha Welm • Illustrator Will Brown • Staff Andrew Kriehn • Staff Robert Malka • Staff Sarah Meggison • Staff Contributors Mike Lacy Tim McClennen Jezebel St. John
!"#$%&'(%)*+&#",-%./*012%3456 Johnnies— Welcome back to the pages of the Gadfly. We hope you have been enjoying this semester’s contributions. We have sought—and achieved, we hope—a mix of pieces that challenge, inform, and amuse. But thinking about this semester (more than halfway through!) brings to mind the next one, and we feel that it is time for we, the Gadfly editors, to relinquish the reins: the two senior editors and Mr. Pendergrass, our layout editor, will be resigning from the Gadfly at the end of the current semester. It has been our privilege and pleasure to work on the Gadfly as
editors and regular contributors for more than two years, but with senior essays and graduate school and job applications ahead (and, we admit, the desire for at least a bit of senior year relaxation), it is time for us to lay aside the graphic design software. Like previous years’ outgoing editors, it is our hope that the Gadfly will continue under new leadership— but, alas, we must report that our production staff has dwindled, and while our current assistant editors have stepped up to learn the ropes, they will not be able to keep the Gadfly printing on their own. It is a long process that requires helping hands from a variety
of corners. Conversations at this College do not take place just on the Quad, in class, and around the dinner table; they also take place in these pages, and we have been proud to facilitate a forum in which all members of the Polity have a chance to further those conversations begun elsewhere. We hope that this can continue next semester, and for years to come. * As a reminder, the next issue of the Gadfly will be out November 10. All submissions are due by Friday, November 8, at 11:59pm to sjca.gadfly@ gmail.com. !
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Gods in Waiting Mike Lacy
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Editor’s Note: The following is in response to Mr. Papadopoulos’s reply in the October 15 issue of the Gadfly to Mr. Lacy’s initial article, which appeared on September 24.
saw a movie recently—apparently based on a book, called a good friend of mine about what “liberal education” is. Leo Anna Karenina—and it had a line of dialogue that speaks Strauss told me in 1959 that liberal education is “[e]ducation to to Mr. Papadopoulos’s reply to my September piece. The line perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education goes: “You are on the wrong side of history. Privilege is wrong, consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human not because it is immoral, but because it is irrational.” greatness.” Yo, there’s that word “greatness” Mr. P was using! My intent was to expose the ideology and biases of the Col- So how do the liberal arts get me that? Uncle Leo continues: lege that are taken for granted, which is precisely what Mr. “Philosophy is [the] quest for wisdom or quest for knowlPapadopoulos was trying to do with my edge regarding the most important, the article! What might differ between Mr. highest, or the most comprehensive inevitably your mind will P and I is that, while I believe ideologies things; such knowledge, [Plato] sugare limiting, I also think they are almost realize that being “God” or a gested, is virtue and is happiness.” Cool inescapable, and no amount of reading beans! Now how do I get it? That’s philosopher king gives you or intellectualism can get you past them. where L.S. gets depressing. no special privileges, for we I say “almost inescapable” because I ac“But wisdom is inaccessible to man,” are all God or philosopher tually believe there is a process for overhe informs us, “and hence virtue and kings, if only just in potential. happiness will always be imperfect. In coming the blinders of our worldviews that would lead to, as Mr. P calls it, “inspite of this, the philosopher, who, as tellectual liberty and ennoblement of such, is not simply wise, is declared to the soul.” Is liberal education, as St. John’s facilitates it, the be the only true king; he is declared to possess all the excelonly and/or best way to get that? lences of which man’s mind is capable, to the highest degree. In my article I clarified that I actually do not worship the From this we must draw the conclusion that we cannot be phi“golden calf” (his words) of modern ethics: “Do not misun- losophers—that we cannot acquire the highest form of educaderstand me,” but, alas, he did misunderstand me: “the shape tion.” What? Why’d I spend that $200k then? of the modern spirit is certainly not perfect, overly curious, I’ll contrast this definition of the liberal arts to that of Scott or complete. Modernity’s Agamemnonish tyranny is sure to be Buchanan, who said that its purpose was to awaken, in all of lost to a successor, but not even Achilles was brash enough to us, the “never sleeping intellect.” Strauss’s definition is the think that he was next in line.” I used the phrase “Agamem- one I’m complaining about, not Buchanan’s. Both exist at St. nonish tyranny” to describe modern ethics for precisely the John’s (and perhaps they are both necessary). Strauss’s definireasons Mr. P critiqued what he believes is my ideology: be- tion flourishes in a worldview that unknowingly accepts oncause it stifles greatness. But I held up Odysseus as the poten- tological dualism. Wisdom is not accessible to man, but it is to tial model for St. John’s, as well as for the gang members with the true philosopher, which means he is no longer a man. This whom I work, to follow if they desire that same “intellectual is a difference in kind, Strauss tells us, not degree. This is the liberty and ennoblement of the soul.” metaphysics of privilege in education, that it changes the esMr. P also critiqued me for not giving a metric by which I sence of man into something like God, and it can only do this said that St. John’s students should “check their privilege,” nor for a select few. The problem with the Enlightenment, Strauss did I state why we should stop believing we are doing some- says, likely the “historical shift” to which Mr. P alluded, is that thing “inherently different than other schools.” Well, let’s use it teaches that education can be universal instead of being rehis own suggestion as a guide: “Is St. John’s better at fostering served for “those with good natures” (“Progress or Return?”, intellectual liberty and the ennoblement of the soul than other 1952). schools?” Now, if I believe this is wrong, how do I refute it by rational But stop for a moment. What the hell is “intellectual liberty argument? How do I refute that souls are essentially differand the ennoblement of the soul”? They’re the ingredients of ent by creation and deserve exclusive privileges? Well, firstly, “greatness,” and “greatness,” apparently, is something moder- not even Plato thought souls were different by creation. The nity hates. Intellectual liberty, we can assume, is something unbearable truth behind the noble lie was that souls are actulike Kant’s definition of “enlightenment”: “man’s emergence ally the same (but for social stability we pretend that they are from his self-imposed immaturity,” and “immaturity is the in- different). But, secondly, I do very much believe that people ability to use one’s understanding without guidance from an- can attain Intellectual Liberty and Ennoblement of the Soul, other.” Is St. John’s the best at delivering that? I’ll be honest, and for that reason I have gone to some lengths to find those I don’t have the energy to make a SurveyMonkey form right people. now to send to every undergrad in the country to see how enI have accepted Mata Amritanandamayi Devi or “Amma” lightened they are. So I don’t have the statistics in front of me, (Google her, y’all) as my guru in this endeavor, a person who but we can ask whether it is even the intent of our College. is considered by many of her followers to be a perfect incarnaNow, schools don’t actually have intents. St. John’s is really tion of God on earth, an “avaPg. 05 just a bunch of bricks and cigarette butts, but I will defer to tar.” And what did this avatar Continued On
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!"#$%&#'#()*$+,$-+.#
or “How Euclid’s Elements is Not Like a Novel, Whatever Certain Well-Meaning People May Tell You to the Contrary” by U. Clidde Transliterated from the Geometric by Jezebel St. John Book One, Chapter Five In love triangles, the entanglements at the base of the stairway love equally to one another, and, if the equal romances be produced further, the entanglements under the base of the stairway (there is a sort of closet there) will love equally to one another. (Note: For ease of pastiche, it is here pretended that loving is a transitive property.) Let Mr. Arbuthnot, Mrs. Bellairs, and Miss Cleves be in a love triangle in which the love between Arbuthnot and Bellairs is equal to the love between this same Arbuthnot and Miss Cleves; and let romances between Mrs. Bellairs and a certain Mr. Dauphin, and between Miss Cleves and a Mr. Euphemious, spring up in just the same way as did the romances of Arbuthnot and Bellairs and of Arbuthnot and Cleves. [cf. Preface, line 2] I say, old chap, that the entanglement between Arbuthnot, Bellairs, and Cleves is equally as loving as is the entanglement between Arbuthnot, Cleves, and Bellairs, and the entanglement between Cleves, Bellairs, and Dauphin to the entanglement between Bellairs, Cleves, and Euphemious. Let’s say a Miss Fanny is taken at random by Mssrs. Bellairs and Dauphin; Cleves and Euphemious behave in just the same manner to a Miss Gertrude [the careful reader will recognize such goings-on from Chapter Three]; and let’s say Fanny and Cleves, and Gertrude and Bellairs, are joined. [cf. Preface, line 1] Then, since Arbuthnot is fascinated by Fanny in the same measure that he is with Gertrude, and as he finds Bellairs and Cleves to have equal holds on his heart, the romances between Fanny and Arbuthnot and between Arbuthnot and Cleves are equally as loving as are the romances between Gertrude and Arbuthnot and between Arbuthnot and Bellairs, respectively; and they contain a common entanglement, that of Fanny, Arbuthnot, and Gertrude. Therefore the base (though not at all vulgar) romance between Fanny and Cleves is equal as loving as is the base (though truly high-minded) entanglement between Gertrude and Bellairs, and the love triangle between Arbuthnot, Fanny, and Cleves is equally as passionate as is the love triangle between Arbuthnot, Gertrude, and Bellairs, and the remaining entanglements will be equal to the remaining entanglements, respectively, namely those which the equal romances observe from across the ballroom, that is, the entanglement of Arbuthnot, Cleves, and Fanny to the entanglement of Arbuthnot, Bellairs, and Gertrude, and (to view things from another angle), the entanglement of Arbuthnot, Fanny, and Cleves to the entanglement of Arbuthnot, Gertrude, and Bellairs. [as in Chapter 4] And, since the whole romance of Arbuthnot and Fanny is equally as loving as is the whole romance of Arbuthnot and Gertrude, and in the same antechamber the romance of Arbuthnot and Bellairs is equally as loving as is the romance of Arbuthnot and Cleves, the remaining liaison between Bellairs and Fanny is as ardent as is that between Cleves and Gertrude. But Fanny’s love for Cleves was also proved equal to that of Gertrude’s for Bellairs; therefore the two couples Bellairs and Fanny and Fanny and Cleves love equally to the two couples Cleves and Gertrude and Gertrude and Bellairs, respectively; and the entanglement of Bellairs, Fanny, and Cleves is of an equal besottment as is the entanglement of Cleves, Gertrude, and Bellairs,
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while the base (but hardly sordid) relations of Bellairs and Cleves are common to them; therefore the love triangle of Bellairs, Fanny and Cleves contains the same amount of love as does the love triangle of Cleves, Gertrude, and Bellairs, and the remaining entanglements will be equal to the remaining entanglements respectively, namely those which the equal unions observe from across the ballroom; therefore the entanglement of Fanny, Bellairs and Cleves is equally as loving as is the entanglement of Gertrude, Cleves, and Bellairs, and the entanglement between Bellairs, Cleves, and Fanny to the entanglement between Cleves, Bellairs, and Gertrude. Accordingly, since the whole entanglement of Arbuthnot, Bellairs, and Gertrude was proved equally loving to the entanglement of Arbuthnot, Cleves, and Fanny, and in these the entanglement of Cleves, Bellairs, and Gertrude is equally as loving as is the entanglement of Bellairs, Cleves, and Fanny, the remaining entanglement of Arbuthnot, Bellairs, and Cleves is equally as loving as is the remaining entanglement of Arbuthnot, Cleves, and Bellairs; and they are at the base of the stairway. But the entanglement of Fanny, Bellairs, and Cleves was also proved to be equally as loving as the entanglement between Gertrude, Cleves and Bellairs; and they are in the closet beneath the base of the stairway. Therefore, etc. Q(uite). E(ducational,). D(ontchathink?).
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tell me? She said: “Whatever you feel I am giving to you, be it enlightenment or peace or wisdom or strength, know that truly you are giving it to yourself. I am merely the vessel for your enlightenment of yourself.” In seeking authors who are more intellectually liberated than those I read at St. John’s, I have been very impressed by Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, but even more so by the Indian Swami Vivekananda, who I believe was one of the greatest and least ideological intellects to ever live, second only perhaps to his master Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who “solved” every problem of metaphysics without ever learning to read, and whose teachings inspired Gandhi to free India. And, of course, there is the contemporary American Ken Wilber, who may demonstrate the very pinnacle of intellect, and is likely the type of mind Strauss was alluding to—one that “possesses all the excellences of which man’s mind is capable, to the highest degree.” If you want to speak of hierarchy, if you want to speak of ennoblement and intellectual liberty, minds like the ones I mentioned are who you want to speak to—but none of them believe privilege holds any water (and neither did Plato, if we can bear that truth). Authors like Kant and Strauss and Heidegger will show themselves to be mere dwarfs grasping at wisps of ethereal power compared to the Indians I mentioned. If you’re into elitism, go East; there are men who claim that they are God, and they just might convince you. But inevitably your mind will realize that being “God” or a philosopher king gives you no special privileges, for we are all God or philosopher kings, if only just in potential. And then your mind, which has been buzzing so incessantly, and doing such unusual things that you must be quite special, gets quiet....
In that the liberal arts encourage people to realize their abiding, ever-present, never-sleeping philosopher kingliness, it is an excellent education amongst the ranks of all other forms of enlightenment—but they all point to the same goal. Maybe St. John’s is better at it than every other school in the world, but we would have to send that SurveyMonkey form out to see. !
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! "#$$$%&'(") & * ' +$$$,#-./' Tim McClennen
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A democratic-capitalist society is still a polity, which is characterized by the population being stable even when people disagree with the decisions of the here is no political theory which is based on self-suffi- leadership of the society. In contrast, a mob is not a polity. A mob always acts with ciency or individualism. perfect unanimity of its members: if any member disagrees Let’s start with some definitions. with the common endeavor that the mob is engaging in, he A polity is a group of people who live together and organize leaves. There is no need for leadership (αρχε): all of the people themselves according to some system, which may be overt or who want to do a thing do it together. All others leave, or do implicit. something else in the same place. When you have αρχε, all of Living together means acting together. A group of people the people contribute to the same endeavor, even when they who all happen to live near each other are not necessarily livdisagree with it, because the leadership demands it. ing together. In capitalist society, the dollar demands that every person Therefore, a political theory is a proposal of a system for orwork. Those who don’t want to are punished ganizing how the people live, or act, together. unless they comply. The common endeavor is People act together because we have to. If a to produce a large body of products and discaveman wants to eat rabbit for dinner, he goes ...a political theory tribute them for the use of the people. out and kills one. He doesn’t need to ask anyis a proposal of a Pure anarcho-capitalism cannot exist, as one for help, and he doesn’t bother to ask for system for orgashown to us by Locke and Hobbes. In an anarpermission. If, however, he wants to eat mamchist society, there is no reason to do business moth, then he needs to round up some friends. nizing how the with those weaker than the self, because you This is “common endeavor.” The oldest style people live, or act, can rob them with impunity. of housing that modern anthropology can find together. There is no opportunity to do business with evidence of in Europe is the round hut, which those stronger than you, because they view required a team of people to make. But the bigyou the same way. Perfect equality of power is gest factor in the communization of early man hard to find, and everyone is too busy defending themselves to is that he was tasty. Saber-toothed tigers, bears, wolves, lions— do any business anyway. People can associate to protect their all sorts of things had a taste for man-flesh, and everyone has possessions, but then we have αρχε, which is what we were to sleep sometime. imagining the absence of. Thus, we have state-capitalism. The If you really want to talk about self-reliance, then we have protector of people’s property can be a king, or a democratito talk about the book My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craigcally elected government, or anything else. head George, which is about a 12-year-old boy who runs away But pure state-capitalism does not last long. Socialism from home to live in the mountains of upstate New York all creeps in. The early United States was fairly pure state-capalone. He makes a house out of a hollowed-out tree and catchitalism, and some of the most heated debates in the country es fish and hunts game and gathers roots and nuts to survive. were over what was called “Internal Improvements,” which The events in the book are about as realistic as Frodo Baggins we now call civil engineering projects, or public works. The putting on his uncle’s ring and turning invisible. Aside from earliest roads in this country were of two types: there were the improbability of a 12-year-old having the requisite skills, dirt tracks that got beaten down by repeated use, with no planeven a grown man would have trouble surviving like that. The ning and no maintenance, and turn-pikes, that is, roads which host of the TV show Survivor Man only spends three days were improved by a private entity which then charged money alone for each episode and spends those three days heading for access as a profit-seeking business. Eventually the Federal towards civilization as quickly as possible. There is a backup Government decided to build some roads at public expense crew ready to pull him out if things go wrong. Trying to live and not charge for access to them. This is the US highway out My Side of the Mountain is the radically literal meaning of system. The one that I am referring to now came before the self-sufficiency, and it is, statistically, a death sentence. Short Eisenhower Interstate System. The original federal road netof that, we have group living, division of labor, and interdepenwork has roads designated “US” followed by a number. US 1 dance between people in all of the proposed political systems. runs along the east coast from Key West to Maine. US 50 conDemocratic-capitalism is a communal life style, and every nects Washington, D.C., to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. US bit as interdependent as any Stalinist experiment. The only 66 is one of the most famous roads in the country. These roads difference is that the mechanism for decision making is not centralized in any individual or group. Each member of the were a huge controversy when they were built, because they society is like a single switching gate in a vast computer that were considered a massive overreach of government power. The Federal government can only run programs when taken as a whole. The organizalso dredged, widened, and Continued On Pg. 08 ing principle is greed, or we could say that the dollar is king. Editor’s Note: This is the second installment in Mr. McClennen’s column, “The Watchman’s Report.” The first installment appeared in our previous issue under the title, “Reexamining ‘Right’ & ‘Left’.”
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ell, that didn’t take long. scionably high premiums. It will be the result of the liberal Call it a disaster, a fiasco, a debacle—anything but a mode of governing. “glitch.” That term does not begin to describe the problems In September 1945 economist F.A. Hayek, then a professor with the implementation of Obamacare, the president’s sig- at the London School of Economics, published in The Amerinature legislative “achievement.” can Economic Review a short essay unremarkably titled, “The The rollout of the state healthcare exchanges—the mar- Use of Knowledge in Society.” Its 12 pages are full of that ketplaces for state-approved healthcare plans—began on Oc- rarest of scholarly qualities: common sense. Hayek observes tober 1, and every day brings a new problem: copious error something everyone knows, except the liberal economic messages, the inability to set up accounts (the very first step, planner: Human knowledge exists “solely as the dispersed without which one cannot even see insurance prices), an as- bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge sistance “hotline” number that does not work. The White which all the separate individuals possess.” The delusion of House and cheering media have paraded out Janice Baker, the the planner—whether he is trying to construct a nationalfirst person to sign up in Delaware. It took her seven hours ized healthcare system or a Marxist utopia—is that all knowlover eleven days. And that’s the norm. edge can be known by a single, central body, which can then Can these “glitches” be fixed? At least five million lines of design the economy accordingly. But, of course, economic code need to be rewritten, in a website of 500 million, and knowledge is circumstantial. How much milk a person needs outside experts estimate that scrapping the current website is a matter of their unique time and place. It is, says Hayek, and rebuilding from scratch would be faster than trying to fix “knowledge of the kind which by its nature cannot enter into the problems—and even rebuilding will take until sometime statistics and therefore cannot be conveyed to any central auearly next year. thority in statistical form.” “The ultimate decisions,” he conMeanwhile, the failure of the website may be Obamacare’s cludes, “must be left to the people who are familiar with these ruin. Republican efforts to delay the indicircumstances, who know directly of the vidual mandate, the provision of the law relevant changes and of the resources imTeleocratic governthat penalizes eligible persons who refuse mediately available to meet them.” ments...can never know to sign up for health insurance, may not be Hayek is implicitly criticizing what so outrageous anymore: West Virginia senphilosopher Michael Oakeshott called enough to achieve their ator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, has crafted “teleocratic” government—government ends—so the ends are a bill proposing just that. as an anointed body tasked with bringing used to justify increasing- about some end: social or economic jusBut without the mandate, there is absoly questionable means. lutely no reason for young, healthy people tice, affordable healthcare for all, whatevto sign up—and the whole system depends er. But teleocratic governments, as Hayek on young, spry 27-year-olds paying outrageous premiums to observes, can never know enough to achieve their ends—so cover the old and sick that insurance companies, by Obam- the ends are used to justify increasingly questionable means. acare law, cannot now refuse. Megan McArdle, a healthcare Hence deep in the source code for the Obamacare website is expert writing at Bloomberg.com, says Obamacare may al- a bit that reads, “You have no reasonable expectation of priready be doomed: vacy regarding any communication of any data transmitted or stored on this information system.” Few on the Left have exThe administration estimates that it needs 2.7 million pressed concern at this troubling infringement upon Ameriyoung healthy people on the exchange, out of the 7 mil- cans’ privacy—presumably because such an infringement is lion total expected to apply in the first year. If the pool is excusable in the pursuit of the noble goal of universal health too skewed—if it’s mostly old and sick people on the ex- insurance. changes—then insurers will lose money, and next year, The alternative to “teleocratic” government is “nomocratthey’ll sharply increase premiums. The healthiest people ic”: government under the strict rule of law, and generally will drop out, because insurance is no longer such a good neutral to ends. Government preserves and maintains, but it deal for them. Rinse and repeat and you have effectively de- is not the vehicle for grand, dappled dreams. In a nomocratic stroyed the market for individual insurance policies. government, there will be no hidden privacy disclaimers, no It’s called the “death spiral.” How likely is it? Enrollma- government contracts to hefty campaign donors, no employer ven.com, a one-man operation tracking Obamacare enroll- insurance mandate that violates religious freedom, no penment, reports that just under 33,000 people have enrolled alty imposed for not buying a product. I noted in my previous column that modern liberalism is nationwide. Meanwhile, 119,000 Pennsylvanians alone have lost their insurance plans because of Obamacare—along with predicated on the same flawed understanding of human na160,000 Californians, 300,000 Floridians, and 800,000 New ture as are Communism, socialism, and fascism: that human Jersey residents. And, of course, every day that the website is nature is infinitely malleable and ultimately perfectible. The unusable, more young people with better things to do aban- result is, in some degree, teleocratic government. Modern liberalism may be the least oppressive of these regimes (thus don the tedious process of signing up for health insurance. But the meltdown of Obamacare—whether it happens next far), but just as in Lenin’s Russia or the Castros’ Cuba, as the month or next year—will not be the result of inefficient web- end becomes more desirable, the rule of law becomes less so. But if the end is noble enough, let’s just call that a glitch.! site design or unhelpful call center operators or even uncon-
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!"#$%&'() *+*',Tuesday 10/15 Kunai Soccer 4 PM Wednesday 10/30 Reasonball Championship, 3 PM St. John’s Chorus, Great Hall 7 PM *Parents’ Weekend* Thursday 10/31 !"##$%&&' Friday 11/1 Kunai Soccer 4 PM Concert: Parker Quartet FSK Auditorium 8 PM Saturday 11/2 Reasonball W v D, 1 PM G v H, 2:45 PM Sunday 11/3 Soccer G v W, 1 PM H v S, 2:45 PM If you would like to see your event on the weekly schedule, please email sjca.gadfly@ gmail.com.
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cleared the banks of the Mississippi river. These “internal improvement” projects were all done in the 19th century. In the 20th century, at the urging of President Eisenhower, Congress authorized a whole new network of roads, which bear that president’s name. These are designated by “I” followed by a number. But roads and water navigation pathways are not the only thing that the government in this country does beyond punishing theft and murder (these last two being the minimum to protect capitalism). In the fall of 1902, there was a massive labor strike of coal miners in Pennsylvania and surrounding areas. The reduction in the supply of coal drove prices up, which left millions of families at risk of freezing that winter (most homes in the US were heated with coal at that time). President Theodore Roosevelt made it his business to put the mines back to work. In stark contrast to previous presidents’ responses to major labor strikes (they had used federal troops to force the strikers to return to work), Teddy gave himself the power to appoint a mediator to facilitate negotiations between labor and management. History has been called this the “Square Deal in the Coal Mines.” In 1906, President Teddy signed, on the same day, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, which made it a federal crime to sell poisonous food or medicine, and a different crime to incorrectly label what you are selling. Not too many years later, the Republican Party put out a pamphlet promising that, if Herbert Hoover got elected, there would be a “chicken in every pot and a car in every garage,” thus suggesting that prosperity for all was the govCapitalism is freernment’s business. Of course, three years into quently opposed Hoover’s presidency, there was the economic crash to Communism of 1929, and Hoove’rs attempts to fix the problem showed few results. The people chose FDR to lead and fascism....As I us out, and he really made prosperity the governhave shown, this is ment’s business. Under FDR, the government created millions of jobs to put unemployed people totally false. back to work, to get them honest pay checks and self-respect. For those who could not benefit from that, they gave out assistance with food, shelter, and other basics. The New Deal program intentionally referenced the Square Deal in its name. All of this is to say that the US government made taking care of people in need its business. Whereas previously the dollar had been king, now there was a biumverate. The “king” gets to decide on the allocation of resources, but that decision is no longer autocratic. The great argument of the 20th century was, then, to what extent it was the government’s business to take care of people. Under pure capitalism, the only exchange of resources is mercantile exchange, that is, when both parties agree that they are exchanging equal value. This is one way of dividing labor and allocating resources. Under socialist-state-capitalism, the majority of exchanges are mercantile, but some are non-mercantile. A non-mercantile exchange is one where the values are not equal and neither party tries to make it equal. Simple example: the government maintains roads. Everyone who pays taxes is, effectively, buying smoothness of road. Everyone receives the same smoothness of road, but we don’t all pay the same taxes. Each is exchanging money for service, but the values on the side of the exchange are not connected. Capitalism is frequently opposed to Communism and fascism (which are, far too frequently, inaccurately conflated) as the system that most encourages or permits self-reliance, or self-sufficiency. As I have shown, this is totally false. The division of labor is as equally thorough (that is, we rely on each other just as completely) under capitalism as under Stalinist, centrally-controlled communism, or under any kind of fascism. The difference is, rather, that under capitalism, the work that one does is directed by the “invisible hand of the market,” while in “Soviet Russia” (to quote the opening of a joke), the work one does is directed by the dictator. !
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