Common Law or a free press; neither individual dignity nornthe principle of habeas corpus are the specters hauntingnEurope, but greed and self-indulgence. It is our vices — ourndepravities and addictions — that we are exporting, not thenvirtues of our way of life.nThis is in fact the triumph of what we call democracy overnwhat they called communism, though neither term has thenslightest thing to do with the actual social and politicalnsystems of America and the Soviet Union. Their system wasndoomed to fail from the start, because it demanded sacrificesntoo great for mortal flesh to bear. Ideally, Marxist communismnis a system of equality in which all distinctions of sex,nwealth, class, and ethnicity disappear. People work inncommon for the common good and rear their children inncommon to enable their wives (if there really would be wivesnand not simply women) to serve the state to their highestnproductive capacity.nThis is, as I have written in a 1988 book, politics againstnthe grain of human nature. Even in the short run of a singlengeneration, it could not succeed. Tell people they cannotnwork for themselves and set aside something for theirnchildren, and they will either find ways to cheat or else theynwill quit working altogether. The market was not somethingninvented by Adam Smith; it is the automatic and inevitablentool devised by human nature to satisfy natural needs. Allnthe jackboots, propaganda, and concentration camps in thenworld will never succeed in creating a New Soviet Man,nexcept temporarily among a few teenage idealists. The restnof us are too lazy and too selfish to live in Utopia. At best, wenmight make weekend visits and return with glowing reportsnon universal literacy and constitutions outlawing the deathnpenalty. “Human, all too human” Nietzsche found evennthe best (or worst) of us, for which we may thank the Godnwho made us.nOvert repression breeds dissent, but a religion thatnthrives on persecution may fall into decay as annestablishment. (Consider only the case of the Church ofnEngland.) Lenin, Stalin, and Brezhnev controlled the press,nattacked the churches, and outlawed rival political parties.nThe result was samizdat publication, clandestine piety, andnthe monumental work of Solzhenitsyn. During the samenperiod in the United States, the press has been free (or atnleast up for grabs to the highest bidder), religion unfettered,nand political parties of every type (except, for a brief period,nrevolutionary movements) tolerated, and the result is thennarrowest spectrum of opinion that can be observed in anyncivilized country. The greatest political debates in thenUnited States are the mutual recriminations of left liberalsnand center liberals over whether or not affirmative actionnpolicies really help minorities to achieve equality. A goal thatnwould have been mocked and despised by most politicalnphilosophers and virtually every sensible person in Europenand the United States is now held aloft as the highest ideal,nunchallenged by dissent. Since the I930’s, there have beennno American dissidents to criticize the fundamental assumptionsnof the regime.- There is no American equivalent ofnFrom Under the Rubble. Why? Is it because our system is sonperfect that it is immune to criticism or because our culturenis so servile that no one with anything to risk has the couragento go into opposition?nSoviet communism had its Marx and Lenin, but fornAmerican social democracy there is no one ideologue, nonone revolutionary who midwifed and gave birth to thensystem. The political leaders responsible were many, butnWilson, Hoover, and the Roosevelts are the most important.nAs for the ideologues, their name is legion, from Locke tonRawls, but it is the Lockean tradition culminating in thenprosaic figure of John Dewey that has slowly and inexorablyncreated the ideological regime that has stolen the namen”democracy.”nThe features of that regime are so familiar that, like a mannwho unexpectedly catches sight of himself in a mirror, wenare almost incapable of recognizing them. I can only list anfew of them: first and foremost, the elevation of the state to anpagan divinity. Are there wrongs in the world — a mannbeating his wife, an employer insulting his hireling — thennthe state will redress them. Most of the alleged wrongs havensomething to do with inequality, of wealth, status, power,nintelligence, opportunities, or even good looks. “Facism”nmay soon replace racism as the heresy of fashion, and uglynmen will soon be demanding the right to plastic surgery andnaffirmative action in their pursuit of beautiful women.nThere is no need to go on. We live this absurd comedynevery day and can no longer laugh at lonesco or shudder atnOrwell. Modern society has already overtaken and surpassedntheir most bitter fantasies. The real question is why there isnso little serious opposition, even from the right, particularlynfrom the right.nThe answer, in a nutshell, is that John Dewey, whoncouldn’t write a decent English sentence and whose knowledgenof history and literature was a string of platitudes, wasnright on a fundamental point that escaped the brilliant andnlearned Marx. This vital point is expressed in the oldnproverb: you can catch more flies with honey than with galln(or vinegar).nTo understand the essence of Deweyism — and mostnDeweyites either haven’t read him or think they disagreenwith him — it is necessary to strip away all his blather aboutnparticipatory democracy, aesthetics, etc. He knew very litflenabout most of the subjects he pontificated on, and henwouldn’t have known a town meeting from a departmentnmeeting; in fact, his arrogance and despotism forced him outnof the University of Chicago. But for all his ignorance andnnaivete — he apparenfly thought Trotsky really was innocentnof the charges against him — Dewey and his followers havenbeen convinced that it is the honeyed persuasion ofnpropaganda that will change society, not official coercion.nThe ideal vehicles for this indoctrination process were, theynrealized, the public schools.nA Puritan Vermonter, Dewey lost his religious faith andnceased to attend the Congregational Church some time innhis 30’s. He was, nonetheless, a deeply religious man whonregarded himself as the prophet of the faith that wouldnreplace Christianity, that is democracy. Like the fablednJesuits of every Protestant’s nightmare, Dewey knew it wasnimportant to start early. Children had to be weaned awaynfrom their parents’ particularities, their superstitions andnprejudices, if a new and better human society was to bencreated.nEvery political theory is a theory of human nature inndisguise, and Dewey, while conceding the existence ofnnnJANUARY 1992/11n