based in the American South and laternin the West, that was strongly attachednto such social groupings as community,nregion, family, race, and nation, and thenother, based in the Northeast, that wasninnovative, more loosely attached tonelemental social bonds and identities,nand resembled in some ways the Athensnof the Golden Age. The conflict betweennthe two was resolved in thenAmerican Civil War, when the Northeasternnfoxes destroyed the Southernnlions, though they did so not so muchnthrough their skill in war as throughntheir successful and often brilliant manipulationnof their economic and technologicalnresources.nHaving suppressed the challengenfrom the lions, however, the foxes of thenNortheast proceeded to mold Americannsociety into a form more suitable forntheir continued power. Commercial,nindustrial, and technological skills becamena main avenue to wealth andnpolitical power. Demagoguery, the manipulationnof the population throughnpatronage and the techniques of massndemocracy, became a standard featurenof American politics. Culturally, thenideologies of the era centered aroundnthe favorite themes of foxes: progress,nindividualism, innovation, opportunity,nacquisition of wealth.nEventually, the dominant groups innthe new nation were destroyed by theirn12/CHRONICLESnLIBERAL ARTSnWELFARE FRAUDnown success. Having built large organizationsnthat relied on the manipulativenskills of managers, not even the victorsnin the social and political revolution ofnthe Civil War could hold on to the reinsnof power when corporations, mass politicalnparties, unions, government bureaucracies,nand mass universities andnfoundations replaced the smaller-scaleninstitutions of bourgeois America. Lackingnthe instinctual group bonds andnloyalties that characterize lions, thenbourgeois foxes never knew what hitnthem, and to this day most of them stillndon’t.nWhat has emerged in the 20th centurynis no less an imperial regime thannthose run by the Romans or the British,nbut unlike those empires, the managerialnhegemony today is founded on thenmanipulative proclivities and skills ofnfoxes. Hence, the elite of the imperialnsystem thinks of social problems andnchallenges only in terms of manipulation.nInstead of punishment for criminals,nthey respond with rehabilitationnand therapy. Instead of war with foreignnenemies, they try negotiations, foreignnaid, exporting democracy, and appliednsocial engineering. Instead of bluntlynrepressing domestic rivals and rebels,nthey meet them with discussion andnsocial reconstruction to remove then”root causes” of discontent.nFor all the murky conspiracy theoriesnWisconsin welfare recipients arrive by the bus load—fromnChicago. A letter from Scott Savage published in thenWisconsin State journal last June reported rampant welfarenfraud, and state legislator David Prosser confirmed the storynwith his own investigation in January. Surprised to find taxisnwaiting at the Milwaukee Greyhound station. Savage wasntold by a taxi driver that “during the first few days of thenmonth [when general assistance checks must be picked upnin person] he picked up many fares at the Greyhoundnstation, drove them and waited as they picked up theirnWisconsin welfare checks and then returned them to thenGreyhound station for their return trips to Illinois, Indiana,nand Michigan.”nnnconcocted by the left about the “powernelite” that supposedly plotted the murdernof John F. Kennedy, clobbered thenNew Left, and leapt into the VietnamnWar in a fit of 19th-century imperialism,nthe left has succeeded in grandlynmissing the point of the very regime itnpurports to oppose. The managerialnregime doesn’t assassinate much of anybody,nand when it tries, as it did in thenearly 1960’s, its efforts look like somethingnout of Get Smart. Explodingncigars and poisoned wet suits were thenweapons the CIA presented as thendevices for the assassination of FidelnCastro, and with enemies like the potbelliednspooks of Langley, the caudillonof Havana could expect to live to a ripenold age. The Black Panthers and thenWeathermen of the 60’s ran into troublenonly when they encountered localnand state police less attuned to thendevices of the Higher Repression designednby the marshals of the managerialnstate, which simply rounded up thenrebels, listened to their whines, andnthen sent them home to become TVncelebrities and real estate tycoons. Havingnlocked the malcontents into thenpleasures of a managerial system thatnmanipulates and dominates even as itnrewards and entertains, the elite hadnnothing more to fear from the left, newnor old.nAs for war, foxes don’t much carenfor it, though when they engage in it, asnPareto noted, “the sword is rattled onlynbefore the weak.” The managerial regimenhas so far rattled its sword andnthumped its chest in Vietnam, Grenada,nLibya, Panama, and Iraq, whilenstronger powers such as the late andnunlamented Soviet Union that conquernwhole continents and massacrenentire planeloads of civilians are toontightly locked into the global system ofnmanagement to be the target of seriousnmilitary force. What is striking aboutnthe way in which the managerial systemn”fought” the Cold War is not thatnthe threat was contrived or inventednbut that, despite the reality of Sovietnaggression and subversion, the Westernnmanagerial states did so little to confrontnand resolve the threat. It wasnnever war but merely preparation fornwar that the system and its managersncared for; and the real purpose of allnthe vast apparatus of armies, navies,nplanes, bombs, and missiles was not tonuse them to defend the West in warn