Soundings, May 2003

The Wordwatcher's Corner: Force. Private transactions do not involve the use of force, and government transactions do. That point is central to understanding freedom and limited government—which may be why the New York Times seems determined to confuse the issue. Compare two stories published on January 15, 2003, in the newspaper's "Business" section.

The first is about a strike by General Electric workers: "Angry about General Electric's decision to force employees to pay more for their health coverage, 17,000 workers at 48 locations in 23 states began a two-day nationwide strike. . . . Officials with the two striking unions said there was no justification for the profitable company to force its workers to make higher co-payments for drugs and doctor visits" (emphasis added). Obviously, G.E. cannot force its employees to do anything, except to live up to the terms of their contract. And, ultimately, the company cannot even force them to do that, for it cannot force its employees to remain with the company. Moreover, fourteen paragraphs into the story, the reporter mentions that in increasing worker co-payments the company was merely exercising an option that had been written into its current contract, the one to which the employees' union had already agreed.

The second story is about a U.S. Supreme Court case involving the state of Kentucky and the health maintenance organizations that operate within its borders:

"Several justices indicated that they were inclined to uphold the 1994 law, which requires health maintenance organizations and other insurers to sign contracts with any provider willing to accept their payment rates and rules." So, the law merely lays down a "requirement," like "jacks or better to open." No one is forcing the HMOs to accept providers they do not wish to accept.

Indeed, Justice David H. Souter observed that, under the Kentucky law, "a person who enrolls in an HMO will have 'a far greater choice' of providers, 'a breadth of choice that would otherwise not be available.'" So, it is really the HMOs that are preventing people from exercising choice, forcing them (one might say) to choose providers they do not wish to choose.

In sum, if a company requires employees to live up to their freely made contracts, that is force. But if a government forces a company to sign contracts it does not wish to sign, that is merely a "requirement," one that expands choice. By such linguistic twisting is freedom lost.

(Be a wordwatcher and help us fight conceptual abuse. If you spot an egregious and harmful instance of linguistic distortion, report it to "Soundings," along with full documentation and a concise analysis. The Objectivist Center will pay $25.00 for each entry that is used.)

How could we understand anything without commentators? "In Baghdad the coalition forces confront a city apparently determined on resistance. They should remember Napoleon in Moscow, Hitler in Stalingrad, the Americans in Mogadishu and the Russians at Grozny. Hostile cities have ways of making life ghastly for aggressors. They are not like countryside. They seldom capitulate, least of all when their backs are to the wall. . . . In the desert, armies fight armies. In cities, armies fight cities. The Iraqis were not stupid. They listened to Western strategists musing about how a desert battle would be a pushover. Things would get 'difficult' only if Saddam played the cad and drew the Americans into Baghdad. Why should he do otherwise?" Simon Jenkins, "Baghdad Will Be Near Impossible to Conquer," The Times (London), March 28.

"It will all get much, much nastier. Saddam Hussein, a devoted admirer of Stalin, must have the Stalingrad parallel hopefully in mind. A confident invading German Army, extended lines of communication vulnerable to weather and guerrilla attack, and then Stalin's order to the Red Army, 'Not another inch of retreat,' followed by the savagery of house-to-house urban fighting." Alexander Cockburn, "Chickens in the Darkening Sky," The Nation, April 14.

Of course, it is easy now to say that the Stalingrad analogy proved inapposite, for hindsight is always 20/20. But to understand why the Stalingrad analogy never made any sense, read William R Thomas's online essay, "Reflections on the Journalists' War Chatter," posted April 5, four days before the city fell.

"The works of the current French maítres à penser—Jacques Derrida chief among them—are available everywhere [in Paris]. Their pretentiousness can addle a perfectly adequate brain almost as quickly as heat can coagulate the albumin of eggwhite. Not long ago, for example, I attended a conference of French intellectuals at which a Lacanian [a disciple of the postmodernist philosopher Jacques Lacan] gave a lecture. It was only two-thirds of the way through that he realized that he was reading out the pages in the wrong order: something which, to do him justice, no one in the audience had detected either. I was one of the few who found this both amusing and significant: most of the audience took it as being one of the hazards of profundity." Theodore Dalrymple, "Anglo-Saxon Attitudes," The New Criterion, April 2003.