MONEY = INFORMATION

"Many consumers were caught entirely off guard when money disappeared."
     Though the date of this is still sometime in the future,  it is not far in the future.  The notion that money is an object or thing to be exchanged was long ago replaced, even in beginning economics classes, by the concept of "ability to acquire goods or services".  And this "ability" has a time dimension:  it is the ability to acquire goods or services in the next moment,  but more likely, days,  months,  or even years in the future.  What's the point of saving up for the future,  if the "ability to consume" is lost?
      How can "money" be a "concept"?  If an exchange for something,  shouldn't it be something itself?   And it is something:  information.   Even the simplest ancient coins carried a certain information about who had issued them,  and the value the objects were assigned.  But coins and paper bills have little to do with the contemporary experience of money.   Our money is represented in electronic form in data storage sites associated with financial institutions.  My net worth is what my accounts say it is in computer data,  ie, information.   When I use this "information" to acquire goods and services,  my information changes, as does the information record of the other party in the transaction.   I would have little concern if a robber went to a branch of my bank today and forcibly withdrew a large sum of currency.   It is doubtful that even a tiny bit of it would be related to my accounts.   But woe is me if the bank's storage systems are destroyed,  or worse,  hacked and the information changed.  It is crucial for me to keep a back up record ongoing of whatever the bank says my "information" is worth.  For that is the only way I can prove my "information value" if their computers fail!   Even a temporary failure to access the account can be very scary!   Though some of us still use currency and bills to carry out some minor transactions,   no major financial transactions are currently done in the US  except by information transfer,  whether that be via credit card,  written check,  direct bank wire  transfer,  etc. 
     But this is only part of the story of money as information.  The value of my "information" in the form of my country's valuation of "dollar-information" ( or "ruble-information")  has a relative value to the other information/currency of every other nation.   And currency traders attempt to take advantage of small shifts in the relative value in this market to expand the value of their "currency information" at the expense of other traders.   What causes the momentary changes in these values?  A complex system of exchange payments for trade across countries,  plus investors from outside the borders of the country,  etc,  etc.   These are all "information events".   And this information is calculated by the traders attempting to seek an advantage.
  If someone creates a new form of information-value("money") which claims to pay those who acquire it more in the future than it costs to acquire, it is worth "investing" in this growing information/value.  But how to know that the "investment" will grow in value over time?   The answer is, as many were sad to discover in the last year,  there is no way to know!  This is RISK:  the impossibility of predicting whether the value of a certain investment of "information" will grow over time.  So why not take out "insurance",  ie pay someone a small fee to insure that if my information/investment doesn't grow then they will make up the difference.  This is called options trading, and the other party must calculate the amount needed to cover this risk,  more information is needed, about unknown future events!   (Obviously AIG did not have a clue when they insured bunches of CDOs.) Financial markets have created a variety of ways of trying to "insure" this risk,  including options,  and CDO,  but the collapse of 2008 showed clearly that these are illusions.  They work for small risks but not for risk across the entire market.  Once one realizes that money is just a complex aggregation of information, then all efforts at maintaining or increasing its value do not involve storage in a safe vault!   The safety of banks, etc, is  a combination of data security management both personal and institutional and the ability to calculate and estimate the complex factors that go into the changing valuation of information/money.  The big buildings and vaults of the last century are irrelevant. 

   The only way to manage and expand the value is to manage the information associated with it better than anyone else. In a classical market model with perfect information for all traders this would not be possible.  So financial professionals try to give themselves a differential advantage in information,  which amounts to misrepresentation of the information they are selling to others, as when Goldman Sachs was shorting (betting against) the very investments they were encouraging others to buy!   Of course the financial industry will fight tooth and nail against any effort to regulate and control this manipulation of information.   Without it, there is no basis for significant relative gain of one player versus another.  But without this regulation,  it is impossible for the small investor,  or even the large pension fund investors,  to manage their risk.  The average investor is  limited in the ability to make these estimations and calculations by lack of information,  and so apparently are many professional investors.   The current financial mess was not caused by CDOs,  or Swaps or any other SPECIFIC investment/information device.   

It is the result of the identity  MONEY=INFORMATION.  

  

SOLVING THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE

Our country has struggled with the issue of immigration for decades.  Despite repeated efforts in congress no meaningful change has occurred.  The reasons for this are clear.  Globalization brought the United States into world competition with cheaper labor markets.  Allowing migration of low cost labor from central America provided a way to lower labor costs in the US.  This was not new,  migrant labor had been used for agriculture in the Western states since the turn of the 20th century,  but farm worker unionization in the 60s made much of the in country labor more expensive.  Business and agri-business owners (mostly Republicans) need cheap labor to control costs especially in unskilled jobs.  This labor force must not be able to vote or it will have political power, unionize and defeat it cost controls.  Those immigrants who can vote, tend to vote Democratic in expectation that their wage demands will be supported by a "labor friendly" party.  Republicans want cheap labor that can't vote.  They are always opposed to a "route to citizenship" because it means a route to voting.


Democrats want immigrants that can vote and that support them, but the workers cannot take jobs away from established Democratic voters, and must not reduce the level of wage and job protections that Democrats have championed over the years.  Democrats want immigrant voters who don't compete with their non-immigrant voters for jobs.  Democrats want a "route to citizenship" and voting,  but don't have a way to prevent these citizens from competing with "old economy" voters,  who are shifting Republican as a result.

In simplified form,  both parties want two classes of citizens:  cheap workers who can't vote,  and voters who can't work at competing jobs.  No wonder there is no solution for there is no intersection of these two groups!  Blue collar workers have shifted Republican on the promise that immigrant labor will be restricted and tariffs will protect American jobs.   This is a totally traditionally Democratic position now being proposed and implemented by Republicans!  And Democrats are supporting free trade to improve trade and citizenship for immigrants to get more voters.  Crazy!  You can't make this stuff up.

The US was built with slave and indentured servant labor.  A two class society with non-voting laborers and voting citizens would return US to this model.  It is the model of Rome and all civilizations that expand by exploiting part of their citizens in second class status.  This violates a real democracy,  but the US was not a "real democracy" until the 13th and 14th amendments after the civil war,  and may not be one yet. (Women certainly question this with the right to vote (19th amendment in 1920),  but a full rights amendment never granted.)

So there are two clear paths to solving the immigration issue:
1) tighten control of illegal immigration,  and allow all legal immigrants seeking opportunity or protection to enter the country and have a reasonable path to citizenship.
2) create a two tiered society in which immigrant labor is allowed to enter under limited controlled status to work but never given full citizenship.

Neither party supports either of these solutions!  Both argue for vague platitudes to avoid the undesirable impact of a real solution.

LEADERS AND LOVE

This quote is from Krishnamurti, a talk at Poona India 9/21/1958.(available on the Krishnamurti site):

...I say that a leader, a follower, a virtuous man does not know love. I say that to you. You who are leaders, you who are followers, who are struggling to be virtuous, I say you do not know love. Do not argue with me for a moment; do not say, `Prove it to me'. I will reason with you, show you, but first, please listen to what I have to say, without being defensive, aggressive, approving or denying. I say that a leader, a follower, or a man who is trying to be virtuous, such an individual does not know what love is... a leader who says, I know the way, I know all about life, I have experienced the ultimate Reality, I have the goods, obviously is very concerned about himself and his visions and about transmitting his visions to the poor listener; a leader wants to lead people to something which he thinks is right. So the leader, whether it is the political, the social, the religious leader or whether it is your wife or husband, such a one has no love. He may talk about love, he may offer to show you the way of love, he may do all the things that love is supposed to do, but the actual feeling of love is not there, - because he is a leader. If there is love you cease to be a leader, for love exercises no authority. And the same applies to the follower. The moment you follow, you are accepting authority, are you not? - the authority which gives you security, a safe corner in heaven or a safe corner in this world. When you follow, seeking security for yourself, your family, your race, your nation, that following indicates that you want to be safe, and a man who seeks safety knows no quality of love...

Given the recent US experience with leadership this observation takes on a significant meaning.  When the people are afraid, they want someone to take away the fear,  to reassure them.  In this context,  the people become passive and accepting.  They are used but not loved,  not respected as independent.  Only where discontent and challenge are allowed to express themselves and acknowledge the fear and confusion does freedom exist.  And only then can there be love.

POLITICS AS VALUES AND DRAMA: Joan Didion and the Kavanaugh hearing

     Joan Didion's POLITICAL FICTIONS remains as relevant as ever in the age of Senate Public TV hearings.   Her book begins with politics of the Dukakis candidacy.  She is eloquent about how insiders create a political message that captures the public response without relating to the issues of the people.  This has become a major occupation of political strategists,  even perhaps by foreign intervention!  Discussing the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, she seems more partisan about the Right marshaling forces against Clinton through Starr.   Didion moves to the left here,  and there is little discussion of the political manipulation of the Clintons toward their opponents.  Their role in politics, for better and worse, has impacted right up to the last election.   The last part of the book is about the rise of the "Religious Right" and here she paints a broad negative picture exploring the effectiveness in this group's rise to power.  
     In this last section, she misses a fundamental point from her own SLOUCHING TO BETHLEHEM:  The 60's was a chaotic time.  The PBS special on the 60s describes the "baby boomer" generation split:  those who smoked dope, had free love, and believed in personal self gratification, and those who studied, stayed home, and believed that self denial and discipline is essential for a good society.   The commentary of Bork, Meese, and Buchanan commenting in the documentary is instructive.   While the narrator extols the 60's rebellion as the seeds of social change in various countries, these men see the events as a failure to respect authority, and self indulgence without any social value.   This is the fundamental conflict of the 60s,  which has become the political world of the 90s and beyond.   It is what fueled the rise of the "Religious Right".  She is correct to see that their media presence is no different than any other political manipulators, just as compromised, but it appeals to the values of certain constituents.  Today,  as cannabis is gradually legalizing across the country,  Sessions still threatens to prosecute its use at the federal level.
     The “rebel” agenda proposes to relax certain social constraints:  pro-abortion,  decriminalize marihuana, provide social rights for gays,  more social and economic recognition for women,  and (some) racial equality.  The opposing view sees "rebels" as “self indulgent”, creating moral chaos,  and is reactive to perceived changes:  women are getting too many abortions, MJ is too freely used,  gays have become a major minority in the population despite AIDS,  and women make up more of the labor force as the needs of the society move away from physically demanding jobs, leaving uneducated White Males behind.  This is the reality of the society changing,  and it is doubtful that liberal views accelerated this, nor that conservative ones will stop it.  The “Conservative” agenda (i.e. “moral majority”, “Religious Right”, “compassionate conservative”) is an attempt to return to a value system that rejects the social changes that have been expanding in the country since the 60s.   There is no evidence that a political system can enact laws, policies or whatever to counteract the prevailing social mores of a society.  There can be a major conflict of legitimacy with the society taking a turn at totalitarianism and then a collapse of the regime.   Will we go through a cycle of South American politics to learn this?  

     What makes this political focus on value struggles so troublesome is how it fails to reflect the actual tasks of the government.   Clinton was the archetypal “rebel”,  a self indulgent, brilliant, self motivated person, who was willing to take whatever position necessary to gain his personal power.  Though it seemed that his goal in office was to lead an “inclusive” and caring government,  in fact his administration was often the opposite.  It extended the trend of favoring the grow of wealth for the super rich.  It grew the economy with limited benefit to labor. “Welfare to work” was not a boon to the welfare mothers.  While encouraging minority groups he enacted "law and order" statutes that expanding the mostly Black prison population.  Clinton was busy with his sexual imitation of JFK and his ability to co-opt the center of politics which drove the Republicans farther to the Right.   Also consider the Reagan administrations. Reagan is viewed both during and afterward as a high point in the vision of “conservative” politics and personally given credit for this, though it is  clear that he was in some stage of Alzheimer’s disease, and unclear how much policy was decided by others.   The “invasion” of Grenada, and the Marine debacle in Lebanon were the examples of a poor foreign policy which “took credit” for the “collapse of the Soviet Union and Communism”, a process which began long before that administration, to which they made almost no contribution. The supposedly fiscal conservatives created tax cuts for the wealthy and excessive spending that drove the country into its worse deficits.  Didion’s portrayal of the Reagan administration as a movie script esp the Iran-Contra mess is not far fetched,  and it expresses the underlying wish for a macho, morally black and white story with a successful outcome which is the product of years of watching Hollywood “oaters” by the generation just before the “boomers”.   The movie WAG THE DOG, where script writers and media fabricators create a media distraction for presidential misconduct assumes a public with very limited capacity for ambiguity and discrimination, a public that requires simple one dimension adolescent stage heroes.   Citizens who cannot tolerate moral complexity and balancing competing interests are unable to make careful political decisions.
      Fast forward to the present.  The country elects a president who promises to reverse all the social and economic issues that distress conservatives,  with a joint majority in Congress that grudgingly supports him.  Though not elected by majority, enough people in critical states support this fantasy to vote for a man with no experience in politics,  and marginal success in his business.  They want to believe the fantasy promoted by political operatives that this will correct the imbalances of the last 8+ years.  The results so far suggest the same favoring of the needs of the wealthy over middle and lower class citizens and a total disregard for debt (that only a real estate developer can have).  This simple minded view of world relationships in both the Bush and Clinton eras is exaggerated in the current administration:  America is the "lone superpower" and can tell everyone else what to do.  The failure to recognize how this supports unification against our country is idiotic.   No country is powerful enough to ignore the rest of the world,  nor should be.
     In this context,  the Senate hearings on Kavanaugh are pure political theater.  The idea of holding public hearings on television to assess the reality of accusations against a man is stupid.   Once informed of the accusations, if the committee was unwilling to carry out the personal investigations by professionals to assess this situation,  they should simply have said they were are unwilling to do so.  Instead,  the two characters are the leads in a drama which devolves down to whose fault it is because the investigations have never taken place.  The shallow and mindless grandstanding of the various senators reveals more than anything else the silly and hollow nature of the proceedings.  The hearing pretends to be about values,  but are simply empty political maneuvering about a major decision regarding the Supreme Court.  The country is careening toward a situation in which the balance of power established in the Constitution is systematically undermined.

      Governments must believe the fantasies they spew out to convince voters.  If actions exaggerate the economic and social imbalances while assuring they are reducing them eventually they will hit a wall.  If problems in security and economic stability are addressed with repetitive platitudes instead of exploring the complex changes in policy needed no changes occur.  Reagan becomes a dramatic cowboy hero despite the myriad failures and impotence of his administration.  JFK is champion of a bold new vision, cut down before his prime, despite his inability to move civil rights in the congress,  his dangerous course in Vietnam, the failure in the Bay of Pigs,  and his drug addiction and sexual distractions.  The fifties are idealized as a high point in American moral culture despite the betrayal of personal liberty by HUAC and McCarthy (which ultimately had to be stopped by the US Army!), using FBI data collected by a closet homosexual/transsexual. The nuances of reality are so collapsed in this discourse that no balanced approach to governing society is possible.  The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, which have left the Arab world in chaotic turmoil are not so easily dismissed.  In the words of Colin Powell, "If you break it,  you own it."     
     It is no wonder that with increasing frequency we are selecting leaders for the country who portray themselves in fundamentally adolescent terms (and often behave that way as well).   The public is encouraged to believe that the country is weakening because of its failure to fulfill its adolescent dreams (either “rebel” or “conservative”) instead of recognizing that an adult world is never so idealized and must accept compromises to function.

9/11 REDUX

      Niall Ferguson wrote a piece about 9/11 soon after (Dec2001) that sees the event as a marker in certain trends occurring in the world:  1)    international spread of terrorism with its arrival in NYC so recently  2)    ECONOMIC contraction of the world economy due to the paradoxical segmentation occurring despite efforts at globalization and free trade.  He cited the growing wealth inequity across richer and poorer countries as well as the strain of demand on raw materials esp oil as a source of energy and its long term pressure on the world economy.  He specifically cited the dilemma in Saudi Arabia of decreasing prices at the demand of western allies which contracted the internal economy of the country.   He did not comment on the irony that globalization of economic development would favor the emergence of China and India as it has to challenge US and European dominance.  3)     The shift from informal to formal imperialism in US foreign policy.   He chose to frame this as "imperialism" because he was writing a book comparing US as an imperial power to Britain in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.  I think it is more accurate to frame this as the failure to transition from a view of the US as a superpower antagonist to some other role in international relations.  
     He did not explore the subtle interweaving of the three elements:  The spread of terrorism is the globalization of a symptom.   Terrorism arises when a minority attempts to overpower a vastly more powerful majority.   It is the statement that the minority does not see a more legitimate route to power and is always abandoned for legitimate recognition.   The  majority recognizes the power demand for what it is,  and can be caught in a struggle to prevent sharing of power.  When this occurs a totalitarian shift seems inevitable because of the population control needed to manage, and end, terrorism in a country.  And paradoxically,  it ends almost immediately when its power sharing demands are recognized (Ireland, Algeria , etc).   
    The economic changes in the world are about a complex shift in inequities:  in developed countries,  the lower tier of the labor market and middle tier of white collar labor are being devalued down to a level of world wide labor costs.  At the same time, in underdeveloped regions like China and India there is substantial improvement in the economic position of labor in the middle and upper range tiers,  and some improvement in lower tiers as well.   This is a shift of economic activity  across borders,  and not an overall contraction,  but in developed countries it is felt as a contraction.  One would expect that this would lead to terrorism in these countries,  and is probably doing so in individual acts of violence,and more dramatic political changes.
     Islamic terror does not always seem to be primarily religious, and the anti-Americanism provides the focus for this energy,  but not its fundamental source.  The 9/11 bombers were identified out drinking before the attack, not a sign of Islamic purity and tradition.   The US response to challenge terror "completely," in the Bush administration and after,  misses the problem of rising expectations and economic instability.   All those who preached NAFTA and etc are now reaping the whirlwind of rapid and unstable economic changes.   Instead of addressing the root issues in world affairs,  which are north/south issues now tearing apart the UN,  the current administration has set itself in a hardline imperialist position,  the exact response to favor the view of the terrorists about the US role.   When the US does things to ameliorate the north-south divide, as in responding to humanitarian crises in other countries,  it immediately undermines the terrorist position in the local region. 

The President Bush/Secretary Rice  view reframed the north/south issue as "promoting democracy".   This has given rise to the  result that in  deposing the Taliban and Saddam,  we have left the resulting countries in a worse position re economic stability than they were before and less democratic!  ISIS and the horrible mess in Iraq and Syria are the direct consequence that Colin Powell predicted before the 2nd gulf war:  It's the Pottery Barn slogan:  you break it,  you own it.
     It appears that the laws of Karma operate in international affairs:  
1) US deposes the ruler in Iran and install the Shah for more favorable oil relationship
2) The Iranian people revolt and install Khomenei to attack the US and reject the intrusion
3) Saddam H is armed and encouraged to fight Iran as a proxy.
4) He fails but attacks Kuwait instead.  
5) US eliminates  Saddam in two invasions and leaves Iraq in chaos.
6) The residual military and others unite with forces in Syria to create ISIS and recapture the country.  
7) The war to topple ISIS destabilizes both Iraq and Syria and facilitates Russia's re-entry.
A similar Karmic cycle can be drawn for the interventions in Afghanistan that led to Bin Laden.
     The 9/11 attack on the US sent a message that the US interventions could be countered by external agents.  The US responded to this by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (2) ignoring the karmic implications.   Bin Laden's goal was to cause fundamental political fragmentation of the US.  The long and unproductive wars in both countries have weakened and divided the country.   The failures of previous administrations has given President Trump the resources to take advantage of the very divided country.  This is not just a disagreement like Vietnam,  whether to fight or not,  it is a loss of national resources:  respect for US interventions,  decimation of the military and the young men and women injured in the endless war,  and the economic costs.
     The lessons of 9/11 have not yet been learned.

ON RELIGION

Religion is the answer to man's humanity.  The two great sources of suffering are loneliness and death, the perception of the end of existence of self.  Religion,  Marx's "opiate of the masses" is offered as the cure for these.  It offers a strong group affiliation that will not be overcome by other group or individual values,  with a morality to protect the integrity of the community.  And in one form or another,  it promises eternal life,  the end of death.   Each major religion embodies the words and insights of some wise person who thought about life and proposed guides on how it might be lived successfully.  Every religion has evolutionary survival as its basic value, though few acknowledge evolution as a reality! 

The great irony is that as groups coalesce around a specific body of wisdom,  t become hostile to groups that embody another wisdom,  and this often leads to violence and death.  The insight that is meant to ease the fear of death only makes it that much more likely to occur!  And this is not the result of any particular teaching,  but, across humanity,  wars between religious groups have been frequent and violent.  The "cure" for death has lethal side effects.

Is there no solution to this?  After centuries of religious wars,  and two world wars,  Europeans seem to be reducing their commitment to religious institutions,  and becoming more secular.   The Islamic countries,  unified by Ottoman imperial power,  have fragmented into traditional religious subgroups,  and ignited a series of wars,  with the help of western nations that reflect their religious differences.  The belief that you get to heaven sooner by dying in battle only allows the escape from intolerable features of earthly life.  War as a solution to human suffering is a cruel solution indeed.  And the world is moving toward it.

One answer is to make everyday human life pleasant enough to be worth living.  This is a social and economic challenge to society,  not simply a religious one,  but there is a morality to social and economic decisions.  The marxist solution to a fair society has proven no more valid than the capitalist model it intended to replace.  The problem is not in the theory,  but in the human capacity to find balance in life.   

How do you create a society in which each person is fairly valued for her ability to contribute to the community,  and still recognize that some persons are more gifted than others?  And who can be trusted to decide?  This is the social challenge of living effectively in groups that manage the loneliness of human life.  This is the morality of economic planning and the intersection of religion and economics.  The current Pope Francis is noteworthy for his efforts to address the issues of social inequality within the confines of Catholicism.  The wealth inequality gap that has ballooned in the US,  and in the world at large,  indicates that the process for valuing people is totally out of balance at this time.  The political pressure of the wealthy to preserve and expand their relative wealth in current US society,  with notable exceptions like Warren Buffett,  are clear signs that our society does not understand the moral basis of economics,  and will cause more suffering as a result until the process is re-balanced.

This will not come by praying.  And it will not come by returning to a traditional patriarchal religious system,  as is clear from the current battles in the Islamic world.   The notion of right-livelihood,  and respect for the environment,  and the ability to value others who are different without needing to make them join your tribe ----these are the skills that are needed to create a livable human society.

The challenge of dealing with death is always the same: acceptance.  Acceptance of the reality of being a living thing,  and human and therefore bound by death.  Illusions of immortality only devalue the importance of the present moment.   When living everyday is meaningful enough for each person,  then there will be no hurry to escape the present,  and no need to be afraid of doing so when the time comes. 

The French Take a VACATION

-->

(I wrote this back in 2004 or 5.  It captured my sense that the US was going off in the wrong direction,  though the French had their own strange ideas.  14 years have exaggerated the differences and complicated the picture with the role of immigration in both countries.)

A recent NPR piece gives a significantly different perspective on human values.  It seems, according to the reporter, that France guarantees each citizen a month of vacation every year.  This includes every working citizen, and even extends to those who are unemployed.  This surely exceeds the social tolerance of American culture.  But wait, there is more:  it seems, according to the reporter, that not all French citizens are accepting this right (or is it a responsibility?) and going on vacation.  So the French government has assigned counselors the task of identifying why certain families do not choose to go, and then counseling or educating them so that they will begin to enjoy this benefit. To the average American,  this seems truly “over the top”:  it typifies the peculiar French culture and its seeming deviance from any rational course of action.  How can we make sense of this culture, with its concern for art, fine food and wine, and this apparent obsession for the relaxation of its citizens?

While still nominally a capitalist economy, France shows an unusual concern for the well being and lifestyle of its citizens.  According to capitalist principles, the primary concern for the individual or the state should be the return on expended capital, ie money or its equivalent.  As Marx eloquently pointed out, humans are equivalent to “labor”, and represent a cost (or, more recently, a “consumer”).   It is the job of the human consumer to allocate his/her capital for whatever vacation he or she may choose.  For the French government to encourage or demand that the citizen choose vacation is to reverse the capitalist flow.   Perhaps the wily French have calculated that the increased consumption, which occurs during the vacations of the French, helps pay for the cost of encouraging this, or even covers the cost of lost production to the economy.  (Probably not.)   Surely there are other ways to stimulate consumer demand that are more product specific and not so geared to improving the lives of the citizens.

France is not REALLY a dedicated capitalist system.  As a country they put far too much emphasis on quality of life, REGARDLESS OF THE PROVEN ECONOMIC RETURN.  A country that is so concerned about culture, or the preservation of language, or  the careful preparation of food, even to the point of being too expensive to create truly “profitable restaurant chains” cannot claim to really be capitalist.  While its social welfare system is extensive,  it is not so extensive to justify being considered Socialist.   And what’s more, many of the cultural concerns of the French are not part of the social welfare system.

In the end we must conclude that the French are concerned about some other value, not directly related to return on capital,  and therefore not readily translated into American language or culture.   It is no wonder that they remain such a mystery.