Capital for the Masses

Here's a letter from Virginia's own Don Boudreaux, one of the Old Dominion's great Men of Letters, writing to a local syndicate (reprinted here with permission):

This morning one of your newscasters pitched an upcoming report on an entrepreneur whose business plan is to make medical products “widely available to the poor.”  The newscaster described this entrepreneur’s efforts as “capitalism with a twist.”

There’s no twist.  Making goods and services increasingly affordable – turning what yesterday were luxuries available only to the rich into products that today are commonplace in even the most modest households – is what entrepreneurs under capitalism have done from the start.  Think Josiah Wedgwood.  Think John D. Rockefeller.  Think Gustavus Swift.  Think Richard Sears.  Think Henry Ford.  Think Sam Walton.  Think Michael Dell.

As Joseph Schumpeter observed in 1942, “Electric lighting is no great boon to anyone who 
has enough money to buy a sufficient number of candles and to pay 
servants to attend them.  It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and 
rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical 
achievements of capitalist production, and not as rule improvements
 that would mean much to the rich man.  Queen Elizabeth owned silk 
stockings.  The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in 
providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within
 reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of 
effort.”*

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics

and

Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center

George Mason University

Fairfax, VA  22030

* Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1942), p. 67.

All very true. And I'm always baffled by people who sneeringly dismiss capitalism because of its profit component. For example, your garden-variety socialist is often heard to remark, "Health care shouldn't be an industry grounded in profit. It's too essential a good for that." Say what? Food is also an essential good, and you don't hear these folks arguing for universal food distribution (well, sometimes they make that argument, but the results are very, very ugly).

The Don's quotation of Schumpeter's observation of capitalism's price-depressing effects is a good one, and it can be applied towards health care as well as it can towards stockings; in fact, it's worth pointing out that "medical products" are already "widely available to the poor" in ways that would seem mesmerizing to our grandparents. Pain relievers, cold medicines, allergy medicines, gauzes and band-aids and antibacterial cream and hydrogen peroxide, antacids, vitamins of every sort, probiotics for digestion issues, sleep aids---all of these things are terrifically available at incredibly low costs compared to what they once demanded (if they even existed at all one hundred years ago). Then, too, condoms are readily accessible and relatively cheap for men, and even if women have to go through the ridiculous charade of seeing a "health" "care" "provider" in order to obtain a prescription for hormonal birth control, it's still fairly easy to obtain, and costs, like, less than $10 a month.

(It still blows my mind that feminists demand "free" birth control via insurance providers when it's just unbelievably cheap in the first place, but that's another subject for another time. In any case, I feel certain it would be even cheaper if it were over-the-counter; the fact that one has to see a doctor and get a prescription for birth control is also a profit-seeking mechanism, but of the worst sort.)

But wait---there's more! As a greenie granola crunchy neo-hippie back-to-the-earther, I'm not really given to use most of the pharmaceuticals listed above. But in this day and age, that's no problem---I can head on over to the health food store and take my pick of hundreds of homeopathic, herbal, plant-root beatnik remedies that were completely unheard of in Western society in my parents' childhoods. These bohemian companies almost assuredly operate under the profit motive, as well---but they bring me wildly diverse products at surprisingly low cost. I picked up a few ounces of tea tree oil for ten bucks tonight; I feel certain it would have been more expensive in the past, if it were even in any store in the first place. Is that a "twist" on capitalism? Is that a bug, or is it a feature? The answer is obvious.

Of course, supermarkets and health food stores aren't the only components to health care; there are also hospitals and doctors' offices, which are still generally grossly expensive. But capitalism can make those things cheaper, too; free up the system, take away the absurd "certificate-of-need" program that stifles innovation and competition, maybe relax some zoning laws, and you're on your way to a dynamic health care market where you're not paying thousands of dollars for simple medical procedures.

A while ago my brother had a shard of glass stuck deep in his foot, and he had to go through a laughable joke of a process to get it removed, including general anesthesia and a preposterous medical bill. "A med school dropout," he said to me later, "should have been able to come to my apartment and do that for a hundred bucks in thirty minutes." Assuredly the med school dropout would've been enmeshed in the profit motive, as well---but he would have provided a valuable service to my brother at an astounding fraction of the cost. Would that be a "twist?" Or would that be simply the nature of the free market---of capitalism---at work?

Delicate Condition

The New York Times asks: 

Would support for abortion rights grow if more women discussed their abortions?

I don't know the answer to that question. Would support for castle laws grow if more people discussed their murder-in-self-defense stories? That's another head-scratcher, but the answer seems fairly clear. There are certain things you don't "discuss" with the public, and killing human beings is one of them.

Sonya Renee, a "performance poet" (is there any other kind?) weighs in thusly:

If we know our stories can be sharp and effective tools for keeping abortion safe and legal why aren't we speaking up? We have been made silent by the dehumanization and danger of coming out.

Pro tip: when discussing abortion, it's best to leave the adjective "sharp" out of the lexicon.

Anyways, come on. "Coming out" was a term heretofore largely reserved for homosexuals revealing their sexual orientation to friends and family. The phrase occupied a special place in the sociological lexicon: sexuality is a thing you can't choose. Abortion, on the other hand, is explicitly defined in terms of "choice." Why on earth would a pro-abortion rights advocate expropriate "coming out" for the abortion rights crusade? It's offensive and incorrect.

Meanwhile, Wendy Davis, the Texas senator who filibustered an anti-abortion bill (quite impressively, in my opinion), is unable to actually come out and say the word "abortion" in an interview, instead opting for such creative euphemisms as:

"matters of personal liberty"

"intrusions against our personal liberty"

"doctors who are able to function in this arena"

"turning back the clock"

"women's healthcare"

"reproductive decision-making"

Good Lord. When I speak of gun rights, I don't couch it in terms of "personal liberty" or "self-defense decision-making." I speak of gun rights. Davis apparently didn't get the "Coming Out" memo.

Props to the hardline feminists who are actually able to utter the word "abortion" when they debate the whole thing. I'm uncomfortably pro-abortion rights, and it helps to talk about the matter with people who are completely comfortable with it; I'm much more happy with a picket sign that says "Abortion On Demand And Without Apology" than I am with an obscure and ridiculous platitude to "reproductive decision-making." One is straight talk; the other is Orwellian nonsense. Let us at least debate the issue honestly.

What's All The Buzz About?

Out of Oregon, an unreal funeral: 

Dozens of people attended a funeral outside a Wilsonville Target store for thousands of bees that died after they were exposed to a common insecticide earlier this month.

More than 50,000 bees dropped dead from trees outside the store. They were exposed to an insecticide called Safari, bee experts said on Wednesday.

“We just want to get the message out there that bees are vital to humans,” said Justin Wozniak, who helped organize the memorial on Sunday. “Without bees, there would be no pollination, and without pollination we wouldn’t have many of the foods we eat on a daily basis.”

Several people spoke to those who attended the funeral, and many wrote down their prayers for the bees on pieces of paper.

Yikes. That's just plain old weird. And this is coming from a good old fashioned nature fellow, what Joel Salatin might call a woo-woo corn muffin. I'm very grateful for the bees every day. But I don't hold a damn funeral for them, even if they drop dead en masse. They're bees! They don't care.

Anyways, bees are dying everywhere, and it's not just because of pesticides; the global warming-induced heat waves are slaughtering them in record numbers, cf: "Bees fall in the heat against Fresno."

Oh, wait, that's the Salt Lake Bees, a triple-A baseball team. But who the hell cares about baseball?

You Booze, You Lose

Mark Steyn reports on a story out of Virginia's own Charlottesville:

When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked.

That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.

A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.

"They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform," she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.

"I couldn't put my windows down unless I started my car, and when I started my car they began yelling to not move the car, not to start the car. They began trying to break the windows. My roommates and I were ... terrified," Daly stated.

Shit, I've shopped at Barracks Road before! These things can happen in your own backyard.

What a remarkable exchange. Here's an incredible statement from the Charlottesville Commonwealth's Attorney:

Chapman stood by the agents' decision to file charges, citing faith in a process that yielded an appropriate resolution.

"You don't know all the facts until you complete the investigation," he said.

Do tell. It might have done more good if the ABC agents had gathered more "facts" before engaging in their own bizarre quasi-vigilante "investigation." But who are we to question Virginia's modern-day answer to Elliot Ness?

A while ago there was a healthy debate in Virginia, spearheaded by Bob McDonnell, on whether or not the state should privatize the ABC stores. After all, what business does the government have in so heavily regulating alcohol? The sneering dismissals from the left were quite amusing: why bother? It's not a big deal, it's not important, there's way more critical political stuff to focus on than whether or not the government sells you spirits or not. Well, perhaps Daly would disagree with them.

The whole thing is illustrative. "Alcoholic Beverage Control" starts out merely as control of alcoholic beverages. Now it's moved to "Non-Alcoholic Beverage Control." Eventually the state will give up any pretense, and it will simply rename the department to "Control." At least the government will be more streamlined. But if you want sparkling water, you'll probably be out of luck.

The Anatomy of Place

This past weekend my girlfriend and I headed to Kentucky for a terrific weekend vacation; Caroline's best friend lives in Louisville with her boyfriend, the two of them our hosts. Over beers on Saturday, I remarked that Louisville seemed a place so definitively defined by Louisville; that is to say, it seemed a place unto itself, explicitly aware of and imbued with its own selfness. J.P. agreed; Louisville, he said, has a stronghold on both bourbon and horse racing, both of which have been a mainstay of the town for well over a century. I neither drink bourbon nor attend horse races on a regular basis (though I partook in both to certain extents over the weekend), but it was clear that this was the truth. Bourbon whiskey seems to flow like tapwater in that town, and horse racing seems to be Louisville's national pastime.

I was continually struck by the singularity of Louisville, and it caused me to reflect a good bit on why I place such a heavy emphasis on localism and local things. If one were to attempt to nationalize the horse races at Churchill Downs---that is to say, if one were to try and take Louisville's horse racing and turn it into a national commodity akin to corn or television entertainment---one would fail terribly. A Kentucky horserace in California would be a cheap gimcrack of the real thing. There are certain things for which one needs to be there---wherever "there" is---in order to experience it as itself. And while you can certainly drink Kentucky bourbon across the country and achieve a measure of the same effect as if you were in Kentucky, there is a lack. A locality reenforces itself and the things unique to it.

I was struck by the same sentiments while looking at my garden upon returning to Virginia. I say "my" garden, though it is in my mother's backyard, for hers is the landed gentry to my feudatory; she has the land, and I do most of the labor (though, perhaps ahistorically, I do it happily and willingly). In any case, there is a garden in a backyard to which I tend, and walking through it on a recent afternoon, I was again reminded about how place energizes itself, be it via bourbon, or horse racing, or agriculture, and further why the industrial food system in particular has been such a cosmic failure, given that it is divorced from any one locality or region. The corn belt is not feeding the corn belt; it is feeding everywhere else in addition to the corn belt. It does not concern itself with itself, but with the money and the resources of far-flung places from which it must draw. It pulls energy and finances from other environments and economies, and it depletes its own energy and finances it turn: the corn farmers are going bankrupt in order to mine the soil of whatever real fertility it might have left. On top of that, it is making sicker and less healthy the people and the places from which it pulls fertility and money; it sends bad food off to far-flung localities with nary a thought to the health of those who eat from it or the health of the soil from which the bad food was drawn. Biologically, historically and economically, it is a system built on bewildering absurdities, chiefly---perhaps entirely---because it concerns itself with no specific province whatsoever, and because it seems to thrive on these absurdities: you will never see the industrial commodities of the industrial agricultural system at any local farmer's market; it will always be somewhere else.

Contrast that with my backyard garden, in which I was walking as I thought these things. The okra, I noticed, was not doing great---but the soil may have been slightly too acidic for it, given the high content of chicken manure that had been mixed into it (okra favors a neutral pH); but of course it's relatively early in the summer growing season. The broccoli was trudging along; the heat was probably retarding its growth a decent bit, and it had been planted somewhat later than the rest of the crops. Tomatoes and cukes were doing fine, especially the tomatoes; they are heavy feeders, and they have plenty to feed on, because we have done the work to ensure this. And the moisture-holding capacity of the soil which we have made is top-notch for tomato plants. The squash was predictably expanding to overtake everything, so I knew there was nothing to worry about for the squash. The peppers are still somewhat disappointing, though it is still early, and I am aware that we will have to do some research to figure out how to grow good peppers in our area if these do not turn out well. The collards suffered an attack by some type of pest, perhaps aphids or caterpillars, which suggests they aren't as healthy and resilient as they could be, which means the soil is not healthy enough. They are still edible, but they could be better, and they will be better if appropriate steps are taken next season. The corn was performing excellently, aside from the rabbit that got into the garden last week and gnawed a stalk right in half. The garden was good and healthy.

All of this was observed in sight of the chickens that make the manure that make the compost that eventually make the garden, and in sight of the compost pile that acts as intermediary between the critical parts of decay and growth. Compost is a delicate, exquisite art, and one which I am still learning; nevertheless, I was able to see, a mere twenty feet away, the pile of organic materials that would eventually be transformed into food for us to eat, and I was able to observe the chickens that would play an indispensable role in the entire scheme, as they scratched for bugs, and worms, and tasty clover.

Add in, too, my observation of how the sun moved across the backyard, and how the trees blocked some of it out and let some of it in, and how I was aware of which plants needed more sunlight and which plants could do with less, and how that reality reflected upon how well the garden was doing; then, too, I was aware of how much rain we had had in the past week, and how much we were slated to get in the coming week, and whether or not the garden needed to be watered by hose or if it could afford to wait for the sky to open up.

This is an intimate awareness of a tiny backyard, and the knowledge to do a good garden in this backyard was and is entirely dependent upon the knowledge of all of the backyard's elements: the soil, the sunlight, the water, the protection from the neighborhood's voracious herbivores, the crucial element of a good compost pile made nearby. You cannot divorce any one of these things from the garden and still have a good garden; they all must be factored in. Is there anyone that believes that industrial agriculture takes the same things into account, and is conscious of the same factors and eccentricities of a place? Or might we accept that the industrial corn or soybean farm concerns itself only with machines and chemicals, and with places other than itself, and with nothing else?

Another backyard gardener in another place summarizes these realities perfectly:

In my garden, sunflowers and tomatoes grow and produce the most consistently. Next up, would be chard, beets and peppers. Smaller varieties like lemon cucumbers have produced the best in past years. The larger, green skinned varieties have a tendency to be inconsistent and bitter (could be the gardener doesn’t pick them very consistently, but that is part of the growing process in my yard). I have just about given up growing squash and melons in the ground due to squash bug infestation. This year I have some volunteer squash or cucumber or melon plants coming up in the chicken area. I am just babying them to see if the squash bug hordes find them or if I will harvest something this year. Chickens are no help with squash bugs; apparently, they don’t like the bugs taste. I have it on good authority Guinea chickens are the way to go for this type of bug management; unfortunately, living in town is not a good fit with Guineas. They are larger and like to roam.

How familiar the gardener is with his backyard---it is greeted as if it were an old friend, and indeed in many ways it is. And the farmer's awareness of his backyard's capacity is no less impressive as he comments upon Guinea hens: "They are larger and like to roam." In one stroke, the farmer recognizes completely the limits imposed upon his own farm and his own land: one cannot have Guinea hens if Guinea hens will not have the place. And this, to me, is the failure of industrial agriculture writ large. The sometime-fertile soils of the Midwest cannot, and will not, have the intensive and devastating monocultures under which it suffers year after year, and they are signaling as much to their farmers, but the farmers will not listen; the only response is to dump more chemicals upon the land and farm it more intensively, because they are not concerned with the soil, and the land, and the farm, and the limits these things impose. They are concerned with supermarkets and with the scant amount of money they will make selling to these supermarkets. It would be heartbreaking if the tragedy were not so self-imposed.

I am not unaware that my beliefs regarding place, localism and agriculture inform and often dovetail with my beliefs concerning government; that is to say, I believe that the more local both government and agriculture are, the better for everyone concerned, and that the defining aspects of a locality are best-expressed in both its governance and the way it does its food. "They are larger and like to roam," writes our farmer friend regarding guinea hens; does our centralized government, or even our State governments, view their citizens with as much respect and as much awareness of our individuality as does the backyard gardener his guinea hens? The answer is no; they cannot, or will not, allow us the same respect that a responsible land steward affords his chickens. So both farms and government must shrink, and become more rooted in specific surroundings and specific constraints, to both be good and do good. The chances of these things happening seem remarkably slim, but of course one does not need to wait for things to get better to do a backyard garden and reap its rewards; nor does one need to wait to begin to appreciate the essence of one's surroundings. As usual, Wendell Berry says it better than I could possibly hope to say; and as a native Kentuckian himself, his words seem appropriate to include within this little missal regarding both economy and agriculture:

An economy genuinely local and neighborly offers to localities a measure of security that they cannot derive from a national or a global economy controlled by people who, by principle, have no local commitment.

And,

We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?

Dying Young and Stupid

Those who know me know how tiresome I find "young" culture---that is to say, the weird cultural push to remain "young," free from adulthood and adult responsibilities as long as possible. Mostly it's music that perpetuates this ridiculous mindset: fun, Taylor Swift, the horrible Ke$ha, and many other insipid artists sing about youthood and youthdom and other youth bullshit, and how we should avoid growing up or something. It's just awful. 

Anyways, the Eternal Adolescent club has an insufferable new Agony Aunt, and she dispenses advice based upon her own never-grow-up lifestyle:

There was a crucial moment in the life of Kelly Williams Brown when she realized that she had not made the necessary leap into adulthood: she was moving into a new apartment, and her furniture, made of particleboard, disintegrated in the rain.

Putting this memory behind her, Ms. Brown, a 28-year-old advertising copywriter in Portland, Ore., has set out to become a kind of Dear Abby/Martha Stewart/Yoda for millennials.

Her new book, “Adulting: How to Become a Grown-up in 468 Easy (ish) Steps” (Grand Central Publishing), is meant to help her peers navigate the rocky shoals of maturity, to guide those 20-somethings who are just figuring out that radio silence is not an acceptable breakup technique, and food does not spontaneously manifest itself in the refrigerator.

“One of the most jolting days of adulthood comes the first time you run out of toilet paper,” Ms. Brown said. “Toilet paper, up until this point, always just existed.”

"Food does not spontaneously manifest itself in the refrigerator." Sometimes I wonder if my generation is so pathetic enough to actually have trouble with this concept, or if they're just faking it because it's funny. Either way, it speaks poorly of them. No, food does not spontaneously manifest itself in the refrigerator. Also, you have to cook it. But I'm sure that's a subject for another hilarious chapter, wherein the protagonist burns the scrambled eggs at 2AM and ends up eating a stick of butter on the couch, or whatever Lena Dunham would do.

Also, why does it take someone until their twenties to realize that toilet paper is a commodity which needs to be purchased? As a joke, that's unfunny and uninspiring; as a real phenomenon, it's a striking commentary on self-imposed hopelessness. No wonder everyone calls me an old man; I've been buying my own toilet paper for years.

The Will to Act

Over at Style Weekly, a magazine in which I am occasionally published, 'Rick Gray muses on why progressives can't get anything done these days: 

In the case of background checks, the opposition consists of a small minority of American citizens, perhaps a few million people. But while those opponents make up only a small percentage of voters, they have the advantage of being focused, single-issue voters.

Any incumbent who displays less than total loyalty to their definition of Second Amendment rights can be certain of facing their wrath. They will vote, and raise money, and work assiduously to defeat that incumbent in the next election.

They might be a tiny minority, but they have will. And our senators understand that.

Imagine, for a moment, that there are an equal number of well-organized citizens on the other side. They are absolutely dedicated to eliminating assault-style weapons, or banning large ammo magazines, or imposing mandatory background checks. And willing to do whatever it takes to defeat any senator who refuses to vote their way.

Then we'd have a fair fight.

All true, although I don't know if what we have right now could be classified as an "unfair fight." I think it's a matter of lazy progressives losing to dedicated conservatives. (And don't think I missed Gray's strange qualifier of "their definition" of the Second Amendment, but this isn't a gun post, so I'll ignore it.)

I read this article over lunch today, and later, while digging out pine needles and monkey grass from around boxwoods (and disturbing a yellow jackets' nest, from which I was brutally stung), I had time to reflect on what makes liberal failure these days. The answer seemed fairly clear after I thought about it. Progressives are usually lazier than their right-wing counterparts, I believe, because they are often convinced of the self-evident flawlessness and rightness of their own beliefs, and they think this self-evidence should translate into automatic wins at the ballot box and in Congress. Thus they don't try very hard. How many times have you heard a lefty smugly congratulate himself for aligning his political sentiments with "science" or "facts" or "common sense?" The prog political mindset seems not to be merely one of beliefs, but of lab-tested certainty. So they think they'll just win on gun control or climate change in the same way that the speed of light is a mathematical certainty. Except they often don't win. Hilarity ensues.

Conservatives, to be fair, are usually equally convinced of the correctness of their own politics---but they know you actually have to work to translate it into hard reality. It's why the Tea Party revolution resulted in a Tea Party sweep during the 2010 elections, and why Occupy Wall Street was a useless, pointless group therapy meeting for angry socialists that quickly dissolved into hopeless obscurity. Liberals often resort to drum circles; conservatives, whatever the merits of their message may be, know that that just isn't enough.

"Real-world politics takes very little account of facile gestures," Gray writes. "It demands commitment." That's spot-on. Of course, as a disaffected, anti-government nutjob gun-lunatic free banking weirdo, I myself am loathe to expend any commitment on "real-world politics." But Gray gets it right, at least for those who think the political system is still one in which genuine progress can be made. So take note, liberals: your swaggering self-certainty is a farce. That is a "fact."