George Handlery about the week that was. The Polanski case: Some are against rape in principle and tolerant in practice. Save the economic order by suppressing the competition between states? Dictatorial centralization and great power status. National self-perception and its policies. Freedom, choice, insecurity and the age of ideology. About fellow-travelers.

It is hard to resist the temptation to bring up the Polanski arrest which is now everybody‘s favorite issue of distraction. Critics generally emphasize that the rape of a now forgiving minor has happened thirty years ago. The fact is true. However, such crimes have a way of surfacing well after the normal statute of limitations would run out. If the time for persecution would be limited then many transgressions could not be prosecuted. To be loudly against sexual (or human rights) abuse in principle, while in practice insisting that with the passing of time they should not be prosecuted, makes the first commitment sound comically hollow. The apologists like to forget that Polanski is a fugitive. Any statute of limitation for initiating persecution is irrelevant. Action has been taken in time but could not be completed since the accused, free on bail, has slipped away thereby preventing the conclusion of the case. Polanski is successful and talented.

For some that is reason enough to apply Chappaquiddick rules. By the same logic a plea could be made that Mladic, an able leader of men, should be rewarded for his prolonged evasion of justice by declaring his past to be off limits.  (Perhaps Mladic should try his hand at making videos.)

The gathering of the political leaders of the major economies in Pittsburgh provokes a reaction. The factors of production -such as capital, labor and resources- drift to where the terms their contribution commands are the most favorable. This means that there is an ongoing competition not only between goods and services but also between the factors of production within and also between economies. The result is the efficient use of these wealth-creating factors. A growth rate comes about that could not have been extrapolated by projecting old curves.

The attempts of governments that, through their well-aimed efforts, are drowning in red ink seek relief by blocking the above process. People are to be prevented from voting with their feet and with their deposited savings on collectivism in favor of efficient low tax entities. This happens by invoking in the support of restrictions, the struggle against the fraudulent that seek safety in tax havens. The few genuine tax evaders to be caught will generate only a fraction of the revenue that corresponds to the benefits forgone by suppressing the competition between systems of taxation and economic orders.

Countries that rose to great power status tended do so under a government that exercised internally much centralizing power. Indeed, centralization has been justified with the great power status achieved. Thereby the center‘s dictatorial power attained a positive connotation. In some nations‘ recall, dictatorship seems to have paid. Global might appears to have come about at the price of submission to big government at home. A country that achieved great power status under a political system that fragmented power and limited the center‘s might has been the USA. This unusual combination of decentralized democratic power with a leading global role can be attributed to several causes. Among them is the „island“ nature of America. Add here her size, population and resources, respectively her high performing economic system. England, another island, also an exception. Her rise paralleled incremental democratization -instead of going the other way.

It would be a mistake to explain away the coincidence of growing government power and great power status as coming about against the resistance of those that lose their freedoms in the service of national might. Sadly, even dictatorships that wrote their record of glory in streams of blood can find approval by the descendants of the victims. The genuine and freely expressed endorsement of Stalin -nearly voted to be the No. 1. Russian of the past- is a typical case. Elevating a nation to the rank of „Top Nation“ can guarantee popularity to individuals that should be tried for crimes against humanity. Being herd-animals, many of us take personal delight in participating in a herd that lords over other flocks. Therefore, support for leaders and policies achieving this are forthcoming even after their demise makes criticism safe. Freedom and peace are not the normal condition of mankind.

The above suggests an uncomfortable insight. The nurtured self-image of nations reveals what their strived for reality and the policy to attain it might be.

A lesson of our age of democracy is that repression is possible while the oppressor invokes democratic ideas.

Germany‘s elections in her eastern regions have demonstrated the influence the „red-reds“and the „pale-reds“ are newly having. Beyond the causes that surprise and shock by this misuse of freedom, there are rational explanations for what seems at first to be an inconsistency.

The authoritarian, pre-capitalist systems, even those of the nascent phase of capitalism, might have been by our standards unjust and oppressive. However, because of the attempt to ossify political and social relationships, temporarily a creeping tempo of change resulted. Real life Socialism fits into the pattern as it attempted to duplicate industrialization „with other means“ while starting from a low level of development. Such a system allowed life, albeit its terms did not entirely reflect reason and justice, to be a predictable affair. Freedom and genuine capitalism, that is the emergence of a market oriented economic order, opened the gates to change and created opportunities. These opportunities introduce a need to choose in matters and to an extent that had not been experienced in closed societies. (An illustrative autobiographical flashback. I recall standing at Santa Monica and Third trying to buy a shirt. After visiting stores offering a great variety, I felt a bit frightened by the need to select instead of being happy to get hold of the standard model.) New alternatives make life unpredictable. More freedom results in less secure predictability.

A consequence of insecurity is a perceived need for an explanation that can organize into a consistent order the confusing cavalcade of matters that characterize the new life style. This concept that can bringing order into confusion and that is designed to reduce the fear of the future and the new had to be an infallible and simple one. The outcome was the „age of ideology“. Its record has been determined by fanatics. Expressing more their irrational self-esteem than their ability, they rose because they were willing to „assume full responsibility“.

The extremists have benefited from the help of a category of individuals who cooperated and at least did not join the camp of the new tyranny‘s enemies.  Fellow travelers are people that shun the risks and the pain of fighting for anything in the front line. Beyond this, we find two sub-sorts. There are the ones that lack the courage to stand up against what they consider a popular idea. The other species supports what it fellow travels with but is unwilling to sacrifice to make prevail whatever it advocates in the abstract. Fellow travelers hope to be propelled to the moral high ground created by the eventual victors. As they do so, they resolutely support whatever they estimate to become a winning idea as long as its success appears to be inevitable.

Abstraction-derived artificial orders can only be imposed by bloodshed. This fellow travelers like to ignore. However, by cooperating they avoid becoming victims of the first hour. In recognition of their services and their dubious commitment their turn comes only at a later stage of the „revolution“. Meanwhile the moral burden of dirtying their hands as the new order is established does not rest on them squarely.