THE BIG LIE I - WORLD TRADE

There are a lot of big lies out there, but the one I want to talk about today is the lie that says a country can increase its standard of living by buying cheap stuff from places where the standard of living is lower. This lie is usually defended under the banner of “free trade”-- the benefits of which are taken to be well established and proven. Actually, this defense is bogus. Trade among nations with different standards of living ultimately has a leveling effect. The lower standard of living goes up, and the higher standard of living goes down.

The classical notion of free trade is that nations can benefit by concentrating on the production of goods with respect to which they have “comparative advantages”. The classic example -- given by David Ricardo -- is trade between England and Portugal. Since the cool, damp weather of England is hospitable to sheep, and the warm, dry weather of Portugal is hospitable to grapes, both England and Portugal will benefit if England produces wool and Portugal produces wine, compared with the situation in which both countries try to produce both commodities themselves.

In situations where nations have true “comparative advantages” – such as location, climate, or natural resources – this is no doubt true.  Both can benefit from expanding production of the product with respect wo which they have a comparative advantage  (forgetting, for the moment, the cost of transportation).

But what does any of this have to do with the modern world.  In particular, what does it have to do with China?

China is located nowhere near its primary export markets. Its climate is highly variable, and not particularly suited to the production of one thing or another. What’s more, China is notoriously poor in energy and many other natural resources. So what does it have going for it?

Well, despite several decades of Communist pretense, China does have a centuries-old tradition of trade. Just travel around Asia and you’ll see what I mean. Everywhere you go, there are Chinese (and Indian) traders descended from long lines of Chinese (and Indian) traders. Second, China has a command economy that can allocate capital quickly to take advantage or perceived opportunities. Third, China has an enormous pool of unemployed and underemployed workers who are used to an abysmally low standard of living.

All of these factors are necessary in explaining China’s recent economic ascent; none is sufficient standing alone. But it also needs to be pointed out that none of these factors – least of all a large pool of impoverished workers – can be called a “comparative advantage” in the classical sense. A “comparative advantage” in the classical sense is not diminished by its exploitation. England does not get less rainy by producing wool. Portugal does not get less sunny by producing wine. But a pool of impoverished workers? Over time, it will be diminished as people are put to work. As their standard of living rises, the “comparative advantage” of their poverty will be lost.

And what about the trading partners that have benefitted from that poverty?   Even assuming all else is equal -- that they have traded goods and services -- whether in raw materials, technology, or agricultural commodities -- of equal value, their benefit will be lost.  But to the extent these countries have run trade deficits with China,  their export has been debt. 

Debt is a promise to suffer a lower standard of living tomorrow in exchange for enjoying a higher standard of living now.

This is the trade the United States has been, and still is, engaging in.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO HENRY FORD?

In an interview published in the October, 1926 issue of a business magazine called The World’s Work, Henry Ford announced that he was instituting a 5-day, 40 hour work week throughout his business enterprises -- with no reduction in pay. 

Five days work for six days pay.  It was a big deal.  Remember, the norm at the time was a 6 day, 48 hour week.

A dozen years earlier, Ford had shocked the industry by instituting am 8-hour day and a $5 daily minimum-wage. (The average in the auto industry at the time was $2.34 for 9-hours.)

So why did he do these things?  There were no labor unions to worry about at the time. There was no shortage of factory labor. 

Was Ford a bleeding heart liberal?  Was he a socialist?   A communist?   Was he an altruistic humanitarian? 

None of the above.  Ford was a capitalist, through and through -- and hard nosed as they come. But in seeking to maximize returns, he beyond the next quarter's profits.  According to Ford's own account, when he originally instituted the $5 minimum wage,  he was concerned mainly with retaining a quality workforce, which was being undermined by high labor turnover. 

Regarding the reduction in hours, his reasoning was somewhat different. Here, in his own words, is Ford's explanation of why he did it.

The country is ready for the five day week. It is bound to come through all industry ... because without it the country will not be able to absorb its production and stay prosperous.

The harder we crowd business for time, the more efficient it becomes. The more well-paid leisure workmen get, the greater become their wants. These wants soon become needs. Well-managed business pays high wages and sells at low prices. Its workmen have the leisure to enjoy life and the wherewithal with which to finance that enjoyment.

The industry of this country could not long exist if factories generally went back to the ten hour day, because the people would not have the time to consume the goods produced. For instance, a workman would have little use for an automobile if he had to be in the shops from dawn until dusk. And that would react in countless directions, for the automobile, by enabling people to get about quickly and easily, gives them a chance to find out what is going on in the world-which leads them to a larger life that requires more food, more and better goods, more books, more music -- more of everything. ….

Just as the eight hour day opened our way to prosperity, so the five day week will open our way to a still greater prosperity.

[emphasis added]

Wow!   Reading these words today is like a breath of fresh air, isn't it?  Make no mistake, this stuff is radical .  Because it reflects a recognition that in the end, there can be no difference between a company's employees and its customers.  Corporate policies that seek to exploit cheap labor eventually destroy the market for the very goods that cheap labor is producing.

Listen to this.  Henry Ford in his own words. “The people who consume the bulk of goods are the people who make them. That is a fact we must never forget -- that is the secret of our prosperity.”

The secret of our prosperity.  Well, sorry to say, American business has forgotten that secret.  And it's lack of remembrance is the source of our current Great Recession. Offshoring, out-sourcing. part-timing, pension-raiding, benefit cutting -- business tactics like these, pursued over a period of decades, has systematically undermined the American consumer.  It's no wonder income disparity hasn't been this high since the eve of the Great Depression. 

The nation is stuck at 20% unemployment/underemployement.  Why?  Because the job market has been gutted through a series of short-sighted schemes instituted to “maximize shareholder value”.
Adjusted for inflation, average weekly wages haven’t increased since 1973. All the wives and kids who can find a job are already working. And now that the home equity is gone, there’s nothing left to borrow against. It's no wonder the consumer has finally run out of gas.



Ask yourself this, "Where is a recovery going to come from when our biggest export over the past three decades has been jobs?"

What we need is a renaissance of American thinking.  We need to realize that making cheap goods abroad will not sustain a domestic market.  We need to realize that nobody's going to have a job if everything we buy is made aborad.

We need to realize we're all in this together. 

We need few more Henry Fords.

SO WHOSE FAULT IS IT, ANYWAY?

Certainly the oddest feature of modern American culture has to be the notion that the government is supposed to take care of everything for us.

Is there a problem? The government has to fix it. Is there a challenge? The government has to meet it. Is there a risk? The government has to utterly and completely obliterate it.

If there are people without food, the government has to feed them. If there are people without medical care, the government has to provide coverage. Folks out of work? The government needs to create jobs – and pay unemployment compensation until they do.

Is there discrimination? The government has to stop it.  Identity theft?  Stop that, too. Credit card fraud, sleazy sub-prime mortgages. Stamp them out. Greedy bankers? Islamic terrorists? Stamp them out, too.

War on crime! War on terror! War on greed! War on drugs!

Oil spill in the gulf?  Mine disaster in Kentucky?  Athletes on steroids?  Wall Street … the deficit … mediocrity in education. War on them, too!

These things shouldn’t be happening. Why isn’t somebody stopping them? It must be the government’s fault.

That’s what most Americans think. If you ask them, they'll tell you …the problem is actually ... the government.  American icon, Ronald Reagan, said it in his first inaugural address:

“Government is not the SOLUTION to our problem; government is the PROBLEM.”

And Ronald Reagan ought to know. He doubled government spending and increased the national debt by 70% during his time in office. But that proves the point, doesn't it? For all his wit, charm and pomade, Reagan was a politician, too. And everybody knows, you can’t trust the politicians.

Because politicians run the government and “government is the problem.”

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, 59% of Americans agree with that statement,  40% of Democrats, 60% of Independents, and 83% of Republicans. They'll tell you. Government is the problem.

Well, that sentiment might fly in a dictatorship, but in a republic it’s more than a little bit idiotic. Because here in America, we have something called “elections”.  Politicians have to run for office. If we don’t like them, we need to start waging war on the idiots who elected them.

War on Us!

That's right, war on us!  War on the self-righteous, self-indulgent, emotionally adolescent, ever-increasingly-indebted American.
Where on earth did we get the notion that government – which is really nothing more than an aggregation of people just like ourselves – was supposed to solve our problems for us?  Our grandparents didn’t think so. The pioneers didn’t think so. And the founding fathers CERTAINLY didn't think so.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men ..."

Hear that?  Life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness. Our government was instituted to secure our right to PURSUE happiness.  It wasn't instituted to make sure we actually achieved it. 

That’s a big difference.  A difference we Americans seem to have forgotten.

If we decide there are things we need before we can be happy, it's up to US to get them.  If there are things we decide we need to get rid of before we can be happy, it's up to US to get rid of them. 

Oh, and one more thing for you tea party-ers out there.  When we decide to pursue our goals collectively -- in other words, as a nation? 

We need to be willing to pay for it.

WHAT AMERICA WANTED

The America we baby boomers were born into was a very different place from the America we know today.  I mean, think about it, in the days right after World War II --

• 33% of the homes still didn’t have running water.
• 40% didn’t have a flush toilet.
• 60% didn’t have central heat.
• Less than 50% had a phone.
• Only a third of the people lived in a town with 50,000 or more people.  If you lived on a farm – and 17 percent of the people still did – the odds were better than even you didn’t have electricity.

Running water, electricity, flush toilets -- these were simple things.  Things everybody wanted.

Then there was the car.  When I was born, there were 26 million cars registered in the entire country.  And as we know, everybody wanted a car.

And the television. Believe it or not, there were a total of 17,000 T.V. sets in America in those days – hulking cathode ray machines with unsteady black and white images and tiny 10 inch screens. The picture quality was so bad that every TV came equipped with “hold controls” you needed to keep the picture from rolling one way or the other for no apparent reason. And remotes?  Forget about it.  The Zenith Space Command didn't come on the scene till a decade later. When I was born, if you wanted to change the channel, you got out of your chair.  Not that it did much good. TVs had twelve channels in those days – but only three that worked – ABC, NBC and CBS. That was it. And they weren’t on 24-7, either. Around 1:00 a.m. each night, a waving American flag came on and they played the Star Spangled Banner.  Well, that had to change!

In those days, a lot of the things we now take for granted either hadn’t been invented or hadn't come into  common use. A few of them:

• Air conditioning - except in a few public buildings (imagine the Sunbelt without it!)
• Microwave ovens
• Anything digital (computers, cameras, watches, CDs, MP3s)
• The Internet

• The cell phone
• Credit cards, debit cards, ATMs
• Anything battery operated
• Almost anything imported

We needed those things, right?

I guess so.  I mean, there are more cars in America today than there are people registered to drive them.  

Today the average American household has 2.86 television sets, and there are more telephones in the country than there are people.

Yeah, we've come a long way ....  By other measures, too.

At the end of World War II, America produced —

• 57% of the world’s steel
• 62% of the world’s oil, and
• 80% of the world’s cars

Per capita, Americans earned roughly twice as much as the British, the Canadians, the Swedes or the Swiss (the group of nations that came in second). 

• America had 7% of the world’s population, but produced 42% of its income.
• America was the world’s premier creditor nation
• America had three-quarters of the world’s gold.

Obviously, things had to change. I mean, when I was born, the second World War had just ended and the United States, was the only major country that hadn’t been either bombed, invaded, or both. So Americans were much better off than most, and the world economy had to rebalance .....

Still, it’s interesting to see just how much things have rebalanced.

 Today America produces –

• 7% of the world’s steel
• 10% of the world’s oil, and
• 12% of the world’s cars

We Americans still have the fifth highest GDP per capita.  But unfortunately --

We also have the world's highest debt.  In fact, we are the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world.


And when they write the history of the Baby Boom generation, I'm afraid that's what they'll remember. I guess the ttruth of the matter is, we got what we wanted.

And we wanted it all.

THAT SINKING FEELING

Come on, tell the truth.  Do you really feel like the recession's over?  Of do you feel like maybe it's over for the economists, but it isn't over for you?

If GDP is growing like they say it is, why do you feel like you're treading water?   Okay, let's be honest here.  Why do you feel like you've been treading water for years?  Or (gasp!) maybe even slipping?  And why does it seem like just about everybody you know is in the same boat as you?

There really is an answer to this.  And it's a simple, little number compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) called "Average Weekly Wages".  This little number -- almost never quoted in the press -- is the average amount people earn every week, adjusted for inflation.  And the sad truth is, according to the BLS, this number has actually gone down somewhat since Richard Nixon was in office. 

If you think that can't be true, you're right.  It's really much worse.

Because the BLS is cheating.  In order to make it look like real wages have only gone down a little bit (and do a few other things, like pumping up GDP and keeping the cost-of-living adjustments on Social Security to a minimum), instead of using a constant measure of inflation, the BLS keeps changing its methods to make it look like prices are going up less than they are.  If you calculate inflation on a constant basis, for example, applying the method the BLS used before Bill Clinton came to office, Average Weekly Wages have actually gone down more than the BLS admits.  A whole lot more.

There are a bunch of of reasons most people don't realize what's going on.   First of all, nowadays, more people in the family are working -- Mom's working, Dad's working, the kids are working -- everybody's working.  (Or anyway, they would be working, if they could find a job.)   If you add up all those jobs, it amounts to about as much as one person used to make when Tricky Dick was in office.

The second reason we don't see what's going on is that -- at least until recently -- the things we owned were going up in value, so it made us feel richer.  If we needed money -- for college, for a medical emergency, even for a vacation -- we could always borrow against the house. 

No more.

The third reason is, consumer goods have been cheap.  Why?  Well, the main reason is that the industrial revolution finally came to Asia, so hundreds of millions of Chinese, Indians, Indonesians,Vietnamese, and Malaysians have been streaming into the cities from the farms, flooding the markets with cheap labor. The result is, you can buy a suit or a sweater or a dress for less than what you paid thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation. The only problem is, the suit or the sweater or the dress has to be made in Asia.  And that means they're aren't any jobs making suits or sweaters or dresses (or toys or tools or TVs) in America anymore.  And that's one reason jobs are a problem.

Another reason we don't see what's going on is that the government and the financial media are so good at hiding the problems.  Economic statistics are now gamed to such an extent that they're nearly worthless.  By the magic of the "birth/death" model, millions of new jobs are assumed into existence on the theory that new businesses have been created, even though there is absolutely no evidence any new businesses have actually been created.  Through "hedonic adjustments", the prices of products that have actually gone up are "adjusted" to have gone down on the theory that their quality has improved.  By "geometric weighting" it is assumed that if the price of  an item goes up, people will use less of it, and therefore it's impact on inflation automatically goes down.

We hear constantly on television that Americans have the highest standard of living in the world, the best health care and so on.  So we believe it.

If you want to keep on believing it, go ahead.

It won't be true, but maybe it will help with that sinking feeling.

HEY, I KNEW THAT GUY IN HIGH SCHOOL

A friend of mine once made an offhand remark that wound up changing the way I’ve looked at people ever since.

“Everyone is someone you knew in high school,” he said.

Now there are a couple of ways you can take this, but in the context of what we were talking about at the time, I knew right away what he meant. And I had to admit, he was right.

There’s something about high school – a vulnerability, an inexperience, call it what you will. But somehow, in the light of it, all things stand revealed. In high school, nothing can be hidden, though we no doubt wish it could. Like it or not, try as you might, in the implacable judgment of yourself and your peers, you’re an open book.

That's probably why high school is the land of eternal archetypes – the jock, the cheerleader, the wannabe, the politician, the conniver, the hoodlum, the geek, the goth. The names may change, but the types sure don't. After high school we find ways to cover these things up. Speech, dress, manners, occupations, possessions. The jock goes to college and becomes a lawyer. The geek makes money and hires a personal trainer. The cheerleader divorces the jock and goes into real estate. The politician sells life insurance and takes up golf.

But the point my friend was making is that none of this matters. Underneath the carefully accumulated adult accoutrements, the archetypes aren't lost. The jock will snap wet towels in the locker room. The conniver will look for an angle. The politician will seek your vote. The cheerleader will ignore the geek. The geek will assume he’s being ignored.

When you look at people the way they were in high school, the fog of adulthood lifts, the disguises vanish, and the archetypes are once again restored.

So, what? you say. That archetype is just an idea, a category of thought.  We can always change it.  In theory, you're right.  But in the modern world, you're wrong.

In the modern world, we educate ourselves on every subject except ourselves. We never try to see ourselves as others see us, so we remain strangers to who we really are.  We get out of high school or college or post-grad and we think our education is over. We rush through life, avoiding what we’re afraid of, going after what we want. We lead unexamined lives, so when we get to the end, we haven’t changed at all. We're the same people we were in high school.



We age the way a house ages.  Year in, year out, buffeted by the seasons, we fade, become dated, lose function, get cluttered.  From time to time, we may try a makeover – change the furniture, update the kitchen, add a master suite, repaint, recarpet. But fundamentally, we’re the same – Gothic Revival, Georgian Colonial, Split-level Ranch, Mid-Century Modern.  The same old house.

That’s what my friend meant. Most people don't change.  So if you can see them the way they were in high school, the disguises will fade away and you’ll see who they are.

As you get older, this trick gets easier and easier to perform. Sometimes it requires no effort at all. You look at a person and at the same time you see someone else – call it, the “high school version”. You’ll see the whole thing – who they are, who they were, who they think they are, and what they want you to see. It’s almost embarrassing, to tell the truth.

I remember the first time I saw George Bush, I thought right away, “Hey, I knew that guy in high school.”

"Uh-oh."

THE GREAT SOCIETY

Trouble. I can feel it in my gut, and I haven’t even gotten out to the car.

Washington, D.C., June, 1968. Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis two months ago, there were riots in a bunch of cities, Washington was one of the worst. I haven’t seen the burnt out storefronts yet, but I’ve seen the video – waves of looters, kids throwing rocks, bloodied heads, cops with truncheons. It’s there in the back of my mind.

I tell myself I’m not a racist; I’m a VISTA volunteer. I tell myself I won’t have any trouble with my African-American brothers, once they realize I’m there to help. There’s nothing to worry about, I tell myself.

But the truth is, I’m scared as hell.

I count five of them. Hanging on the stoop outside the liquor store. Today you call them homies, gangstas maybe; in ‘68 you call them guys, maybe even kids. In ’68, they’re first generation, up from Carolina, probably born on a farm. They aren’t crackheads; they aren’t dusted; they aren’t stone killers. Not yet. But that doesn’t mean they won’t beat the shit out of you if things go a certain way; it doesn’t mean they aren’t packing guns.

I look at the piece of paper in my hand, even though I know the address by heart. It’s up the block, across “D” Street, and if I start over there, these guys are going to come after me for sure.

I’m thinking, “How the hell did I get myself into this?” But of course, I already know that.

* * *

One thing about politics that hasn’t changed over the last 40 years, is that the bad news always comes out on Fridays. People go out Friday night; they don’t watch the news. After that, there’s still the weekend. And by the time Monday rolls around, however bad the news is, it’s not news anymore.

That’s how it is when they announce the end of draft deferments for graduate students in the middle of the Vietnam War – they do it on a Friday. February 16, 1968, to be exact. And as planned, I don’t hear about it until I pick up a paper on Sunday afternoon.

To men who have grown up in the era of the “All-Volunteer Army” it’s hard to describe what it feels like to find out that you’re about to be drafted to fight in a war you think is stupid. Before this war is over, 58,000 U.S. soldiers will die; 150,000 will be injured; over 20,000 will be permanently disabled. A quarter million South Vietnamese troops will also die, along with over a million from the North. But worse than that all of that, an estimated TWO MILLION CIVILIANS will perish before the war is over in Vietnam. And I am certainly not eager to earn the karma for that.

Sunday night, I sit at my desk in the dorms and dash off a letter to the editor of the New York Times wondering, tongue in cheek, how the generals expect that ending graduate deferments will assist in the design of tomorrow’s weapons of mass destruction (amazingly, the letter gets published). After that, I get down to considering the options. I can move to Canada (too cold). I can go to jail (ending my legal career). Or I can look around for another deferment. This leads me to VISTA.

VISTA stands for Volunteers in Service to America – a sort of domestic Peace Corps that, in these days, sets several thousand draft deferred kids a year loose on the knotty problems of poverty, illiteracy, disease, ignorance, malnourishment, discrimination, political disenfranchisement and probably a few others I’m leaving out. The program was created in 1964 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. (A few years later, Nixon will offer the nation his own – and very different – vision of a “war on poverty,” appointing a young Don Rumsfeld to head up the Office of Economic Opportunity. I will leave you to imagine the sort of war on poverty THAT produced.)

But those days are yet to come. When I join up, the OEO is in its halcyon days, the happy home of a panoply of ambitious social efforts – Head Start, the Community Action Program, the Job Corps, Neighborhood Legal Services, and so on. All of these are part of something called “The Great Society” – a legislative agenda Lyndon Johnson has somehow managed to ram through Congress in the wake of John Kennedy’s assassination. And whether you love it or hate it, you have to admit The Great Society is a truly monumental collection of legislation.

To the Great Society program can be traced every major social, environmental and cultural initiative seen in the United States since the Great Depression. Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, the Public Broadcasting System, National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Federal Truth-in-Lending Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Preservation Act – all of them are part of the Great Society.

Looking back from a distance of forty years, you have to ask yourself, what in the hell Congress has been DOING ever since then. Were the Great Society programs all America needed? Maybe we were exhausted after that. Or maybe the whole thing was a big mistake, an aberration, a brief hiccup in the relentless trend line of American social Darwinism. It’s got to be one of these things, doesn’t it?

* * *

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re still on “D” Street, figuring out how to deal with the guys outside the liquor store.

As I see it, the options are these: I can cross the street and hope to get where I need to go before the guys come after me. I can hang a U-and get the hell out of there. Or, I can get out of the car, walk down the street and see what happens.

Given the fact that I’m supposed to be living on this street for the next six weeks, avoidance isn’t really an option. I’m going to have to deal with these guys unless I cut and run altogether. And given my draft status, cutting and running isn’t going to work, either. So, I take a deep breath, get out of the car, pull my duffle bag off the passenger seat, and head down the block to start my life in the inner city.

It starts out friendly enough. “My man. How y’all doin’ today?” The Big Guy gives me a smile.

I nod. “Alright, how you doing?”

“Awright, awright.” He nods. Then, he points to my duffle bag. “Whatch’all got in there? Looks like you done held up the laundry.”

I laugh. “Yeah. Too bad the stuff I got wasn’t washed yet ….” I get an idea. “Hey, maybe you guys can help me out.” I pull a paper out of my shirt pocket and read the address off it, even though I know it by heart. “1670 D Street Southeast – you know which one that is?”

He shrugs.

“Farris house? That’s where I’m going.”

“Farris.” He repeats it doubtfully, turns to his friends. “Any you heard of Farris?

His friends all shake their heads.

“Martha and Rodney,” I point. “Should be across the street somewhere.”

The Big Guy looks at his friends. “Anybody know what this white boy talking ‘bout?”

Silence, then a little kid mumbles, “Betty’s sister.”

A moment later, another one chimes in, “Yeah, yeah, Martha. Married that fool drive the panel truck. In the tile bidness. ”

I jump in. “Right, right. Rodney. I’m going to be living with them awhile.”

“Say what?” The Big Guy cocks his head at me.

I nod. “I’m going to be living over there. A month is what they tell me. Maybe six weeks. They’re putting me up. They’re getting paid to do it. By the government.”

“Paid? By the gov’ment?” The big guy looks at me. “Shit! You pulling my leg, motherfucker!”

I shake my head. “I’m in a training program …with the government. This is where they’re putting me up.”

The Big Guy looks at his friends. “Training program, huh? What they trying to teach you, how to get a cap shot in your ass?”

Everybody seems to think this is a tremendous joke.

Actually, it seems like a joke to me, too. Hey, I’m on their side. I shrug, “Hey, I don’t know what they’re trying to teach me. All I know is it’s a ticket out of the Army, okay? They were gonna send me to Vietnam.”

“You don’t wanna go to Vietnam?” The Big Guy laughs. “Look around you, motherfucker, you on “D” Street. Pigs around here day and night, popping off they riot guns, rolling brothers didn’t do shit down the motherfucking station. You don’t got to go nowhere! Got Vietnam right here in the Nation’s Capitol!”

The Big Guy thinks a minute, shakes his head. “White boy don’t wanna go to Vietnam, so they send him down here, train with the niggers on D Street. Motherfucker, I got to be writing this shit down for my comedy routine.”

A stocky kid speaks up. “Boy here for training, we got to stomp his honky white ass, train him how things go down ‘round D Street.” Some of the others nod in agreement, but the Big Guy holds up his hand in a benign gesture.

“No, now my brother, be cool, be cool,” he says. “Any fool look at this shit got to realize there be some fundamental discrepancies involved in the motherfucker. Boy roll on in here, park up the block there, fine as you please, parade on down the street, cool as a jive ass motherfucker. Look at it, you KNOW there some facts the motherfucker not taking into consideration.” The Big Guy pauses, finally nods. “So, this being our place of business and what have you, I’m feeling it be up to us to give the boy some education, you know, ‘splain the rules of the game to the motherfucker.”

The homies start to smile, getting a sense they have an idea where this might be going. “Yeah, yeah,” they say.

The Big Guy looks at me. “You down with that?”

I nod. “Education.”

“My man.” The Big Guy pats me on the back, then puts an arm around my shoulder in friendly fashion, and turns me in the direction of my car. “See now the first thing is, you parked your car on the motherfucking STREET.”

I nod again. “I did.”

The Big Guy shakes his head gravely. “You can’t do that.”

“I can’t?”

“Use your head.” He points up the street. “Don’t you see each one of them spots on the street got a motherfucking HOUSE next to it?” I nod. “Awright, now ask yourself, if you park your motherfucking car next to that motherfucking house up there, where the motherfucker LIVE in the house gonna park HIS car?”

I smile and, in a flash of wit, point to an empty space across the street. “How about over there?”

Whap! The big guy smacks me in the back of the head, but in a friendly fashion.

“See now, that be the wrong answer, motherfucker. Looka here, say the man do park his car over there, okay? What’s gonna happen, the man live in THAT house come home? Where that motherfucker gonna park? Understand what I’m saying to you?”

This has a certain logic. “So where am I supposed to park, then?” I ask.

The Big Guy smiles benignly. “See, NOW you asking the right question. On account of, as luck would have it, that be one of the services WE providing.”

“You tell people where to park on the street.”

He nods. “Could be. But we also be taking CARE of the motherfuckers, understand what I’m saying to you? Make sure nothing happen to ‘em, vandalism, shit like that.”

I smile and nod back. “You take care of the cars.  How about the sidewalks, you take care of them, too?”

The Big Guy chuckles, turns to his friends. “Motherfucker ain’t as dumb’s he looks.” Then back to me. “Sidewalks, street corners, store fronts, alley ways – whatever the fuck going down, if it’s round D Street, we take care of it. . … Understand what I’m saying to you?”

Anyone who thinks the entrepreneurial spirit is not alive and well in the ghetto has never spent any time there. The truth is, the ghetto is every bit as entrepreneurial as Wall Street. The only difference is, the folks in the ghetto don’t get to make up the rules that govern their behavior. If they made up the rules like they do on Wall Street, things would go a lot better for them.

So I’m thinking, “I understand what you’re saying, alright. An economic exchange. You provide the protection, and you want me to pay for it.” And I can tell you, standing there on the street corner trying to hold on to my draft deferment, the deal he’s offering looks like a lot more attractive than the one I’m getting from the government.

* * *

For the most part, my days in Washington are spent trudging around public housing projects in unrelenting heat, trying to get people to tell me how shitty their living conditions are. This is in support of a lawsuit the local Neighborhood Legal Services office is going to bring against the National Capital Housing Authority. The lawsuit will claim the Housing Authority is failing to provide “decent, safe and sanitary housing”, as required by the National Housing Act. The Authority will claim it’s doing what it can within the constraints of its budget.

As we work our way through the housing projects, most times no one answers the door. Or if someone does answer, it’s a kid, barely old enough to talk. The kid tells us no, Mama ain’t home and unh-uh, I don’t know where she is, or when she’ll be coming. It doesn’t take long before we begin to suspect that Mama actually is home, but there’s nothing she’s willing to tell us.

At first, I can’t understand why it’s so hard getting these people to talk. Then, one time, an old, hard-eyed woman indulges me.

“Lemme see if I understand this, she says. “You saying the GOV’MENT ain’t going by the law ….”

“That’s right, Ma’am.”

“And you bringing a law suit gonna MAKE the gov’ment go by the law?”

I nod. “Right again.”

She shakes her head. “God DAMN, boy,” she says. “What make you think the gov’ment gonna go by the law AFTER the law suit, when it ain’t gone by the law to begin with?”

In the evenings, we have classes conducted by people introduced to us as “community organizers”. These people do not look like hippies. They do not sport bell bottom pants. They pride themselves on looking ordinary. They mistrust theory. If they quote at all, it is from Saul Alinsky. They tell gritty stories about civil rights marches and voter registration drives and union elections and their stories are more cautionary than uplifting, floating in an irony as thick as the smoke from their unfiltered cigarettes.

Despite their passion, it is hard to understand what these people believe in. They see judges as asses and politicians as crooks. They see reporters as lazy, their editors as pawns, and their readers as fools. They say they want to give power to the people, but I cannot figure out exactly which people they have in mind. But the thing I wonder about most of all, is how these people managed to get the United States government to pay them to share with us their revolutionary vision.

In America, I think, even the revolutionaries are entrepreneurs.

After the meetings, I return to the airless, little row house on D Street that has become my temporary home – the house where I was going when I ran into the Big Guy and his fellow entrepreneurs.

The house is owned by a wiry, mean spirited little tile installer by the name of Rodney Farris.  Rodney lives with his wife, Martha, and three small children – a son he has fathered (and dotes upon), and two daughters that Martha has borne prior to their marriage (and whom Rodney tolerates at best). Relations in the family are strained. Even in front of strangers, Rodney never tires of reminding Martha how he “picked her up out of the gutter” and “got her off of welfare.” Somewhere in this reminder, there is usually a comparison of Martha with her sister, Betty, whom Rodney regards as a whore.

As it happens, Martha's sister, Betty Thomas, lives half a block up D Street, almost exactly across the street from where I first parked my car. Most of the houses on D Street are, like Rodney’s, narrow two-story brick affairs with featureless facades and cement steps. But Betty Thomas’s house is an exception. It’s a rambling old clapboard place, with innumerable bedrooms and a wide wooden porch that serves as a kind of meeting place for the neighborhood. Betty, herself a wide-hipped, welcoming woman, lives in the house with her mother (universally called Mama), her brother, James, and a rainbow coalition of thirteen children who, Betty proudly tells you, have almost as many fathers. “And Sharonda, here? her daddy is a sailor from the PHILIPPINES!” (There are also an indeterminate number of cats.)

Today, Betty would be considered a walking advertisement for welfare reform. In 1968, she is considered a victim. To me, she is just another entrepreneur.

For those who don’t remember, in the days prior to Clinton’s welfare reforms, the dominant form of federal assistance is called AFDC, which stands for Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The idea behind the program is to provide support for CHILDREN whose families have little or no income. In theory, the benefit goes to the CHILDREN. (After all, it isn’t their fault their parents are poor). In practice, however, it’s the MOTHER who receives the payment. This is where the problems come in.

First of all, it is the nature of the system that the more children a mother has, the more money comes in the door. Since there’s no expectation in 1968 that a mother with young children should work, the program creates an incentive to keep having children so that some of them will always be young. As an entrepreneur, Betty understands this, and she produces the commodity the government will pay her to produce. (Don’t get me wrong, Betty loves kids (she also loves men) so this is an incentive she is not only willing, but extremely happy to exploit.)

The second problem with AFDC is, since the MOTHER gets the money, it isn’t a sure thing she’ll actually spend it on the CHILDREN. She may, for example, spend it on a new dress or a TV set. To prevent this from happening, a caseworker is assigned to check up on her. But if the mother buys the TV anyway (as Betty once did), and the children don’t have winter coats as a result of it, there isn’t much anybody can do but give the family a special needs grant for the coats. As an entrepreneur, Betty understands this, of course.

The nature of AFDC is that you can only receive assistance if you don’t have income. If there’s a man living in the house, there’s an assumption that the man is (or should be) working, and therefore if a welfare inspector happens to drop by at, say, three or four in the morning, and finds a man in the house, your benefits get cut off. This so-called “man in the house rule” creates one-parent families almost as an instrument of federal policy. The intelligent ability to adapt to government regulations is apparently lost on the people who write them. But it is not lost on Betty. The only man a welfare inspector will find in her house is Betty’s brother, James, who has managed to get himself on disability. As those who have read thus far may suspect, James is also an entrepreneur.

James is bright, engaging and funny, but he never seems to have much to do. The reason, of course, is that if you’re on disability, you’re not allowed to work. After all, if you can work, then you’re not disabled, right?

There’s a saying around the neighborhood, “The eagle shits on Friday.” As I quickly learn, this does not refer to the government’s propensity to announce bad news on Fridays, but rather, the fact that this is the day the government checks come out. Even though public assistance is money for nothing, nobody is overjoyed living on these checks. Welfare is something you can get by on, but you can’t get ahead. The only way you can do that is pimp whores or run drugs.

One time I ask James if he wouldn’t be better off getting a job. He looks at me like I’ve got a disability of my own. “Job?” he says, “What kinda job they gonna give me? Parking cars? Running a elevator up and down someplace?”

“No, no,” I say. “You’re a smart guy. You could get something better than that.”

He looks at me. “With a criminal record?”

I don’t have a comeback for that, so I ask him. “What did you do?”

“What’d I do?” He laughs. “What’d anybody do?” He motions vaguely. “Look around, man. Everybody round here been to jail for one thing or another.”

Actually, this is true. Rumor has it, even Rodney was in jail for stabbing a man in Carolina before he started his tile business. The way James sees it, he produces what the system pays him to produce – in his case, that happens to be a disability.

* * *

As I think about all this at the time, I conclude that I am also an entrepreneur -- selling what it is I have to sell for the best price I can get in the marketplace. Certainly, an impartial observer looking at my situation would have to say, my motive for engaging in social service is perhaps somewhat less than pure.

I think of classes in the drafty caverns of Harvard Law – purgatories where students are called upon to state abstruse appellate cases before hundreds of their peers while quick witted professors do their best to convince the assembled multitude that they are fools. Whatever principle the student says the case represents, the professor suggests it is something else. If the student says the case is right, the professor shows why it might also be wrong. If the student asserts the case is consistent with prior authority, the professor demonstrates it almost certainly is not. Or, for variety, he might tell the student to take a seat and call on someone else. In this process, the only sure thing is that an answer will never given.

At some point, it occurs to me that the goal of this Socratic process is to teach the student that in the practice of law, there are no answers. There is no right and wrong. There are only good and bad arguments. And as I think about this, the most disturbing part is not that students are terrorized and bullied; it is not that their self-esteem is placed under constant assault; it is that virtually no one involved in the process seems to care about the fundamental question – how a system that rewards the ability to argue either side of an issue without troubling itself about right or wrong can be justified on moral grounds.

And I begin to think that America has the best legal system money can buy. Later, I realize it also has the best political system money can buy and the best medical system money can buy. I realize that in America, you get what you pay for. Money is not only a medium of exchange or a store of value. Money is an expression of American freedom. This is what has become of the pursuit of happiness.

* * *

A lot of people will wind up getting shot in 1968 – Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, Andy Warhol, not to mention the entire population of My Lai Village No. 4.

The only one who will not die is Andy Warhol. 1968 is that kind of year.

Standing there with the Big Guy and his buddies, I can’t help thinking how easy it would be to reach in my pocket and give these guys my money. The problem is, I know economics. If I give them my money, I’ll be creating the wrong incentive. If I give them money, they’ll shake me down every time they see me on the street. Sooner or later, I’ll have to say no. And when I do, it’ll go harder.

So I tell them the truth (something the system never tells them). “Look,” I say. “I’m gonna be living here. How am I gonna pay you guys every time I walk down the street?”

“How about we pop a cap in your ass right now, then see how you gonna walk down the street,” the stocky kid says.

The Big Guy looks annoyed. “Jo-Jo, you pop a cap in somebody’s ass, you gonna do it when I tell you to.”

The stocky kid gives the Big Guy a look, but he doesn’t say anything.

Finally. the Big Guy turns to me. He smiles a friendly smile, takes me aside. “I tell you what,” he says. “How about you pay this time, twenty dollars, we call it even.”

This is tempting. I take a minute to think about it, but I finally shake my head. “I wish I could do that,” I say, “but there isn’t any ‘one time’ and we both know it.” Then I say, louder, so his friends can hear. “Look, man, this is your place. I understand that. But like I said, I got no money and I got to get down the street. So this one time, I’m gonna ask you to let me go.”

We look at each other, the Big Guy and I, neither one saying anything. Finally, I pick up my duffle bag and start walking.

When I’ve taken maybe five steps, The Big Guy calls out behind me, “Nobody gonna be looking out after your car, now you understand that.”

I stop, turn around, and smile. “Yeah. But I figure you’re the man. And nobody on this block can touch that car without your permission.”

The Big Guy folds his arms, then he shakes his head, smiles. “You taking money out my pocket, motherfucker.”

“I’m just asking.”

He nods, turns away, then turns back again. “What kind of program you say you was with, anyway?”

“Called VISTA,” I say. “But I’m working with Neighborhood Legal Services.”

“So you a lawyer.”

“Trying to be.”

He shakes his head, laughs. “Motherfucker! I shoulda KNOWED that.” He points at me. “You owe me one.”

* * *

The set-up in America is – and from what I can tell, always has been – that people fall into two main categories: the ones who beat the system, and the ones who get beat. Laissez faire plus human nature doesn’t leave room for anything much in between.

Viewed in hindsight, the Great Society was a fleeting experiment that even its intended beneficiaries viewed with a measure of scorn. To those of us who worked in the trenches, its greatest utility was probably the unique excuse it gave us to look the other way. After all, the Great Society didn’t create a great society, did it?. We still had poverty; we still had crime; we still had injustice. The economic class system remained.

Only our idealism was lost.

As hippies became yuppies, the charm of voodoo economics took hold. Regulations were gutted, criminal penalties were toughened, and, oh yeah, welfare was reformed.

When I look back on those days, I can’t help but think the Great Society really was an aberration. We Americans don’t believe in collective responsibility. In fact, we have a problem with any sort of responsibility at all. Look at our heroes. They aren’t Albert Schweitzer and Mahatma Gandhi. They’re Bonnie and Clyde and the Godfather. They’re not Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. They’re Dillinger, The Notorious B.I.G. and Al Capone. We’d give a hundred Sergeant Preston’s for a single Dirty Harry. We don’t like the cops from Internal Affairs Division. We like the ones who break the rules and get thrown off the force.

We’re Americans. We like the tough guy, the hard ass, the gangster, the wise guy. We like the gambler and the con man.

We like the entrepreneur.