But, going above and beyond the buzz words, is that how Americans really feel? Supply and demand

Following the disastrous 1994 earthquake in Los Angeles came the cry from many quarters: Stores should not be raising prices so much for basic necessities like water, batteries and diapers. Stores should not be raising their prices at all at such a time, it was insisted. Its not the California way and its not the American way, said Senator Dianne Feinstein. More grievances arose because landlords were raising rents on vacant apartments after many dwellings in the city had been rendered uninhabitable. How dare they do that? people wailed. The California Assembly then proceeded to make it a crime for merchants to increase prices for vital goods and services by more than ten percent after a natural disaster.1

In the face of all this, one must wonder: Hadnt any of these people taken even a high-school course in economics? Hadnt they learned at all about the Law of Supply and Demand? Did they think the law had been repealed? Did they think it should be?

Even members of Congress dont seem to quite trust the workings of the system. They regularly consider measures to contain soaring drug and health-care costs and the possible regulation of the ticket distribution industry because of alleged price abuses.2 Why dont our legislators simply allow the magic of the marketplace to do its magic?

The profit motive

President Calvin Coolidge left Americans these stirring words to ponder: Civilization and profits go hand in hand. When First Lady, Hillary Clinton, however, lashed out at the medical and insurance industries for putting their profits ahead of the publics health. The market, she declared, knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. 3

The unions regularly attack companies for skimping on worker health and safety in their pursuit of higher profit.

Environmentalists never sleep in their condemnation of industry putting profits before the environment.

Lawyer bashing has become a veritable American sport.

Judges frequently impose lighter sentences upon lawbreakers if they havent actually profited monetarily from their acts. And they forbid others from making a profit from their crimes by selling book or film rights, or interviews. The California Senate made this into law in 1994, which directs that any such income of criminals convicted of serious crimes be placed into a trust fund for the benefit of the victims of their crimes.4

President George Bush, in pardoning individuals involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, stated: First, the common denominator of their motivation-whether their actions were right or wrong-was patriotism. Second they did not profit or seek to profit from their conduct. 5

No less a champion of free enterprise than former senator Robert Dole said, in an attack upon the entertainment industry during his 1996 presidential campaign, that he wanted to point out to corporate executives there ought to be some limit on profits...We must hold Hollywood accountable for putting profit ahead of com-mon decency. 6

That same year, the mayor of Philadelphia, Ed Rendell, bemoan-ing the corporations move to the suburbs-for what he admitted were perfectly rational reasons-declared: If we let the free market operate unconstrained, cities will die. 7

Finally, we have a congressional debate in May 1998 about imposing sanctions against countries that allow religious persecution. The sanctions were opposed by US business interests, prompting Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to declare: Weve got to figure out what we believe in our country. Do we believe in capitalism and money or do we believe in human rights? 8

But how can the system conceivably function as it was designed to without the diligent pursuit of profit? Not merely profit, but the optimization of profit. Surely an attorney like Mrs. Clinton knows that corporate officers can be sued by stockholders for ignoring this dictum. Yet she and so many others proceed to blast away at one of the pillars of the capitalist temple.

Private entrepreneurship and ownership

Likewise, the American Medical Association has taken aim at another of the temples honored pillars-patents, that shrine to the quintessential entrepreneur, the inventor. The AMA issued a blister-ing condemnation of the increasingly popular practice of patenting new surgical and medical procedures, saying it was unethical and would retard medical progress.9 Is Thomas Edison rolling over in his grave?

A few years ago, the people of Cleveland felt very hurt and betrayed by the owner of the Browns moving his football team to Baltimore. But is it not the very essence of private ownership that the owner has the right to use the thing he owns in a manner conducive to earning greater profit? Nonetheless, Senator John Glenn and Representative Louis Stokes of Ohio announced their plan to introduce legislation to curb such franchise relocation. 10

Competition and choice

And where is the appreciation for Americas supposedly cherished ideal of greater choice ? How many citizens welcome all the junk mail filling their mailboxes, or having their senses pursued and surrounded by omnipresent advertisements and commercials? People moan the arrival in their neighborhood of the national chain that smothers and

drives out their favorite friendly bookstore, pharmacist or coffee shop, squawking about how unfair it is that this predator has marched in with hobnail boots and the club of discount prices . But is this not a textbook case of how free, unfettered competition should operate? Why hasnt the public taken to heart what theyre all taught-that in the long run competition benefits everyone?

Ironically, the national chains, like other corporate giants sup-posedly in competition, are sometimes caught in price-fixing and other acts of collusion, bringing to mind John Kenneth Galbraiths observation that no one really likes the market except the economists and the Federal Trade Commission.

The non-profit alternative

The citizenry may have drifted even further away from the system than all this indicates, for American society seems to have more trust and respect for non-profit organizations than for the profit-seeking kind. Would the public be so generous with disaster relief if the Red Cross were a regular profit-making business? Would the Internal Revenue Service allow it to be tax-exempt? Why does the Post Office give cheaper rates to nonprofits and lower rates for books and magazines which dont contain advertising? For an AIDS test, do people feel more confident going to the Public Health Service or to a commercial laboratory? Why does educational or public television not have regular commercials? What would Americans think of peace-corps volunteers, elementary-school teachers, clergy, nurses and social workers who demanded in excess of $100 thousand per year? Would the public like to see churches competing with each other, complete with ad campaigns selling a New and Improved God?

Pervading all these attitudes, and frequently voiced, is a strong disapproval of greed and selfishness, in glaring contradiction to the reality that greed and selfishness form the official and ideological basis of our system.

Its almost as if no one remembers how the system is supposed to work any more, or they prefer not to dwell on it. Where is all this leading to? Are the Russian reformers going to wind up as the last true believers in capitalism?

It would appear that, at least on a gut level, Americans have had it up to here with free enterprise-the type of examples given above are repeated in the media each and every day. The great irony of it all is that the mass of the American people are not aware that their sundry attitudes constitute an anti-free-enterprise philosophy, and thus tend to go on believing the conventional wisdom that government is the problem, that big government is the biggest problem, and that their salvation cometh from the private sector, thereby feeding directly into pn>freeenterprise ideology.

Thus it is that those activists for social change who believe that American society is faced with problems so daunting that no corporation or entrepreneur is ever going to solve them at a profit carry the burden of convincing the American people that they dont really believe what they think they believe; and that the publics complementary mindset-that