The Framers embraced government provided services.

It never occurred to me that it would have to be repeated, much less come as a shock, that our country was founded on the assumption that the government would be the source of services needed by all. But Mark Brown, holder of the Newton D. Baker/Baker and Hostetler Chair at Capital University School of Law, fills us in on precisely this history, explaining that the Founding Fathers “believed that ‘essential’ services should be provided by government to the public at large for little or no remuneration. The costs of these services would be shared by the whole.” I’m not sure I agree with Brown’s characterization of this approach to governance as “socialism,” but I suppose he’s only deferring to the debased and a-historical way that term is being thrown around these days.

Tulips and Weed

 

So now I’m in Amsterdam, getting ready for my first class tomorrow, and still recovering from jet lag. The weather helps considerably. Clear blue skies and not a bit of humidity, hot in the sun and cool in the shade. They say exposure to sunlight helps reset one’s circadian rhythms. I’m hoping so.

Invariably when Amsterdam and law come up together in conversations in the States, it’s in a conversation about drugs and/or prostitution. I suppose those are subject worth delving into, but they’re not terribly important ones when it comes to comparing two cultures through their law and legal systems. Or, rather, they’re symptomatic, not central. There is a social libertarianism in Amsterdam openly dismissive of religious moralism to a degree that would be politically suicidal in conventional U.S. political conversation. But I think that social angle is just one of many. Social libertarianism is one thing. Economic libertarianism is something else entirely, and I think I can explore the ways the Dutch seem to both be adept at Western capitalist enterprise (they did, after all, virtually create international banking) and at the same time to maintain successful socialized systems of education and health care financed by a high tax rate. There are ways, I think, the Dutch both respect and fear the power of capitalist markets because of a longer history of and memory for their successes and their failures. Who could forget the Dutch Tulip Craze?