Riddle Me No Riddle

Once upon a time, a long time ago (circa 1960), there was a China-man who lived in Havana pushing a small refrigerated cart. He was, you might say, a sort of political exchange student. From Red China he came to the newly Red Cuba in a gesture of Communist goodwill and totalitarian population dispersal. (It was about this same time that my third cousin ventured behind the Iron Curtain in order to enjoy the merriments that came part and parcel with post-Stalinist Russia. Or the USSR...whatever. At any rate, that is a different story.) The China-man worked as a mobile fruiterer, for in his refrigerated push-car (which is to say that that everything was on blocks of ice) the China-man toted various fruits. For a penny, nickel, or dime, depending on the exoticism of your tastes, the China-man would cut up a fruit and sell you a cool cup. As it turns out, this China-man was also something of a fish monger, and if you brought him a fresh catch he could de-scale it and fillet it in a deft minute. Yes, the China-man ran a Fruit and Fish cart. Odd, but food often makes for strange bedfellows. (Chocolate-covered bacon from the State Fair, anyone?)

Once upon a time, not quite as long ago (circa 1973), mi abuela was wandering the streets of Chicago's Chinatown. She was, you might say, a political refugee. From Red Cuba she came to the Red, White, and Blue USA in a gesture of Communist revulsion and totalitarian terror. From behind a pile of salt cod mi abuela spied her Fruit and Fish China-man. Turns out the he too had traded in his Party card for a one way ticket out of Castro's Cuba. He was doing well, he told mi abuela, but he was tired. From his native Mandarin he had had to learn Spanish, and now he had to learn English. It is a lot of work when you get right down to it. "Had I only known," he told mi abuela in flawless Spanish, "I would have skipped straight to English."

But of course he didn't know, and mi abuela didn't know either. Certainly my third cousin didn't know either. She returned from Russia, enamored of the memory of Stalin, though unable to translate her political zeal into an effective cure for her diabetes that killed her upon her arrival home. We just never know. Or do we?

In college during my feminist philosophy heyday, I remember well the debates on whether the sexual was also the political. The question seemed interesting at the time. Now the interesting question is whether the economic is also the political, and the answer is, "Of course." Milton Friedman noted that economic freedom was necessary for political freedom, and he was to regret 50 years later that he did not emphasize that the reverse is not necessarily true. Political freedom does not guarantee economic freedom; economic freedom is the Archimedes point.

It is in this spirit of beginning at the beginning that I've come lately to F.A. Hayek. It is Hayek's argument that following certain economic paths will lead to certain political outcomes has made me realize two things:

1) That at any given moment, there is usually someone (not so much a visionary as simply a thinker with tremendously acute insight), who knows exactly what is going to happen over the course of the next few generations.

and

2) That I am not that person.

It must be utterly exciting to know what is going to happen. Failing that, it must be wonderful that amongst a plethora of voices, one is able to distinguish the voice that speaks the truth. I'm not sure I have an ear for that either. After all, I'm clueless as to whether I should continue along my current path or go into the Fruit and Fish business in Panama. In all fairness, there is no voice that is currently pushing me toward Panama. But there was that voice that told me to buy gold at $700 that went painfully unheeded. Perhaps I'd better stick to fruit and fish.