trust 2

What would we do without shopkeepers who may well put a thumb on the scale?  Well maybe we could have the gummint run the shops.  Not some gummint run by fat cats who own the politicians, but by people who care first and only about the welfare of their fellow man.  Well that didn't work out well for the Russkies did it?  On the other hand look at where they are now, some thirty years after tossing off the red yoke, not much better off I'll wager.  But who do you trust Stalin or Putin?  Well in that case I guess Putin is the lesser of two evils, but maybe jolly old Khrushchev would be better than the dour Putin.

But I was talking shopkeepers and trust.  Shopkeepers represent business, but who is the enemy of business?  In Thatcher's day it was socialists, and the Iron Lady certainly plowed them a new asshole.  Well shopkeepers, say even the moms and pops.who sold young Uncle Ken that loaf of Wonder Bread and quart of Wanzer milk, who would never think of putting a thumb on the scale, would not like some guy, some gummint guy, poking his head in and maybe checking their scales, and the expiration dates on their Rice Krispies.  Even if their scales were perfectly balanced and their Krispies up to date, nobody likes anybody poking around.  Better to let their dishonest competitors get away with something then to have gummint guys poking in their wares.  Best if there were no regulations at all.  As the Margaret Thatcher of libertarianism, Ron Paul, once said there is no need to check breakfast cereals for rat poison.  If some company makes cereal with rat poison, people will eventually, after many have died, figure that out and stop buying that particular brand and the manufacturer will go bankrupt and see, the problem will take care of itself.  We don't need no stinking regulations.

Such were the conditions in 1906 when Sinclair Lewis wrote The Jungle.  Then was a time of the libertarians wet dream, lassiez faire capitalism.  This was the gilded age when just a few owned most of everything, much like the present day.  But them along came the socialists.  And I spoke of socialists earlier as linked to academics, but at this time they were not very academic at all, they were nitty gritty downtrodden guys who were just as likely to toss a bomb as to lead a parade down Main Street.  In the end they did not fare too well against the forces of capitalism and the gummint that the capitalists had bought. But their fallen flag was taken up by the progressives who the socialists considered sell outs, but they did get elected and they did get us the 40 hour week, and a guy to poke around the shopkeeper's shelves and keep things hunky dory.

This will be continued next week.

So see, for two straight posts I have written about something other than the pandemic.  But let me just add a little something for Beagles, and that is I would hate to have a shop and have it go bankrupt., but I would hate even more to be dead.