Prototype of Government Cultural and Social Hegemony

Before we put government in charge of cultural uplift, consider that prototype of government cultural and social hegemony: the military base. Once seen as model communities of discipline and moral high standards, bases have recently been rocked by revelations of widespread sexual impropriety. This hardly surprises anyone who's spent time in or around the military.

Young people are put in distant places where they face no supervision from family or an organic community. They have little work to do and an abundance of discretionary income. Their housing, food, medical care, and clothing are provided at no charge by the government. Nobody need plan, for example, to come up with next month's rent.

The grayness and regimentation of the military base mask a deep debasement. Illegal drug use is rampant on and of the base, and has long involved more than half of the enlisted men (recent declines in reported drug use measure only dishonesty). Alcoholism is more than double civilian levels. Tatooing is normal, gambling is rampant, and in its discount stores, the US military is the biggest purveyor of pornography in the world.

Go to any military base in the country and look at the kinds of outlying enterprises taxpayers unwittingly support. Once nice communities have been turned into magnets for nude dancing, prostitution, and every manner of sexual profiteering.

••• It's no surprise that the military is riddled with sexual abuse: in their off-hours, these guys are feeding our tax dollars to naked performers. It reflects the absence of chivalry inherent in all governmental operations.

Other businesses popular around military bases are pawn shops and the sort of car dealers that cater to people who don't pay their debts. That reflects another dirty secret of the military: live-for-the-moment attitudes and bad credit are typical as in any welfare culture.

Relieved of the burdens of making themselves productive, excercising economic choices, or managing finances, the troops in these bases tend to collapse into a state-of-nature barbarism, despite the best efforts of a few officers.

[Editor's Note: The above is a perfect description of welfare states in general. US Military in the 1960s, however, had not yet devolved to today's reflection of government socialist failure.]

An Entirely Private Enterprise Cultural Solution

[Editor's Note: August 2014, Amazon expresses displeasure at the high prices of Disney movies!]

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Moreover, the real triumph of Disney has nothing to do with its movies. This corporation, founded by a hard-core believer in free markets, and a cultural reactionary to boot, has demonstrated new frontiers of private-property creativity. It has erected entire communities of perfect order and freedom organized on the principals of free enterprise. Disney World is 45 square miles, an area the size of San Francisco. The rides are the least interesting part. Disney World contains upwards of 300 retail stores, plus nature preserves, streams and lakes, nature trails, recreation areas, yacht clubs, resorts, beach clubs, golf courses, office space, and campsites. There are 12,000 rooms available for rent, and total employment is 35,000, most of them young people who behave themselves because they have to.

Infrastructure like roads and bridges are entirely private, as are police services, fire protection, sewage, and trash disposal. Despite having no taxes or mandates, and being entirely free from outside zoning, this massive park is arguably the best "governed" place on earth. There is no crime, no vandalism, and no sexual profiteering. There are no gangs, no slums, no homeless bums, no panhandlers, and no loiterers. Because it is private, every inch is cared for.

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The economics literature is always fretting about “public goods" that markets supposedly can't produce, including police protection and infrastructure. Nonsense said Disney, and proceeded to demonstrate how orderly a micro-society can be when there's no government to push property owners around.

Indeed, Disney World points the way toward solving most of our social and cultural troubles: put more property in private hands. It has even shown us how the immigration problem can be handled. Disney World attracts 30 million visitors per year without disruption.

As economist Fred Foldvary points out, Disney shows that the less government intervenes, the more private enterprise can satisfy human wants, supposed "'public goods" are no exception.

The stark contrast between the ordered liberty of Disney World and the deep corruption of the military base is no accident. These two communities demonstrate, in contrasting microcosms, the difference between the market's means of social organization and the government's.

Yet micro-secessionism isn't the only way the market overcomes cultural disintegration. Wal-Mart is hated by the left, but it too has become a source of cultural uplift. As the nation's largest distributor of compact discs, it supervises everything that appears on its shelves. Producers must take out degrading lyrics, electronically mask dirty words, and supply clean cover art. This approach is not for everyone. But Wal-Mart saw a market niche and filled it. Only capitalism allows that.

Our society may be slouching toward Gomorrah, but government is the least likely institution to reverse the trend. The free market not only gives us prosperity, it can also make us better people by requiring and rewarding old-fashioned virtues like thrift, prudence, courage, and stewardship. Government, which has made us so much poorer by its invasions of private property, has also wrecked the culture.