what happened to Russia many years after his death.nProfessions have become increasingly risky. Doctors arenafraid of the epidemics of malpractice suits. Journalists arenfrightened by the wave of libel suits. We hire lawyers to suenlawyers for legal malpractice. And if this were not enough,nhere comes Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn with what many perceivenas the case against wordsmiths for instigating massnmurder. Naturally, the entire corporation, regardless ofnpolitical persuasions, feels endangered. Although manynintellectuals as individuals continue to admire Solzhenitsyn,nthe recent hostility, which cuts across ideological borders, isna corporate response. This is a correct response becausenSolzhenitsyn is indeed after the corporate power of ideas,nthat is, after ideologies.nIronically, intellectuals, who as individuals neednfreedom more than anything else, impose servitudenupon the world when they work as a corporate entity.n18 j CHRONICLESnSolzhenitsyn has raised the issue, as yet unexplored byneconomists, of the hidden costs of ideas to people. Ideas arengoods with two unique properties. First, they are bothnprivate goods, for they 6an in a sense be licensed, and publicngoods, for they can be used by others at no cost. Therefore,nindividual ideas may have tremendous hidden benefits fornmany generations. But ideas can also be abused by others atnno cost to them and at real costs to the third parties.nTherefore, individual ideas may also have tremendousnhidden costs to the public. Ideas are as much public bads asnthey are public goods, and one cannot be sure what theneventual effect of an idea may be. Ideas are thus timebombs.nSecondly, those who produce and transmit ideas enjoyndoing their work. They circulate their merchandise evennwithout real market demand for it. Naturally, they wouldnlike to generate demand for their goods. At the same time,ntheir dealers are aware of the hidden costs for the public.nThere always is a danger that the costs of public goods ornbads can be applied to the dealers of ideas. Historicalnprecedents are abundant.nSome writers, myself included, can live with these sadnfacts of the market, namely low demand and potential bills.nOthers tend to circumvent the market. In order to do so,nthey incorporate ideas into loose or not-so-loose arrangements.nThese arrangements are ideologies.nOne has to emphasize that ideologies are not the onlyntype of socialized arrangements derived from ideas. Paul A.nSamuelson in his classic paper, “An Exact Consumption-nLoan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivancenof Money” Qournal of Political Economy, Decembern1958), discussed how individual transactions may not bensufficient for human survival. Many goods are perishable,nand people cannot store goods for their old age. Many goodsnlose their value on distant markets and people cannotnoperate efficiently. Therefore, people invented variousnarrangements, which Samuelson calls social contrivances.nThe most conspicuous of these is money. Another one is annimplicit contract between children and parents for old agennnsecurity in exchange for previous support of the young.nThose arrangements create social norms and customs whichnpeople take for granted. Although Samuelson says that thesenarrangements compensate for the failure of the markets, Inwould rather suggest that they are complementary to thenmarkets. Social contrivances are voluntary private arrangements;nthey still operate through mutually beneficial individualntransactions according to human preferences. Not sonideologies.nIdeologies, or Ideas Incorporated, substitute collectiventransactions between groups, classes, or nationalities fornindividual transactions. Ideologies work as collective arrangements,nboth when they remain within the network ofnintellectuals and when they are imposed on the public atnlarge. Ideologies create collective behavior according toncollective ideas and values which, in turn, should replacenindividual preferences. Here is the crux for Solzhenitsyn:ndespotisms impose constraints, ideological systems imposenchanges on individual preferences, on human nature.nPrecisely in order to impose themselves on people,nincorporated ideas and corporate networks of intellectualsnneed to employ institutions and institutionalize themselvesnin the state. Ironically, intellectuals, who as individuals neednfreedom more than anything else, impose servitude uponnthe world when they work as a corporate entity.nWhen collective behavior is substituted for individualnbehavior, the value of human life declines correspondingly.nThere are no limits in terms of human costs for ideologicalnstates. Once ideologies work as collective arrangements andnconstitute collective behavior, they take upon themselves thenprice an individual would otherwise pay for his actions. Annindividual has a constraint: he may refrain from a crimenbecause he cannot afford the price, be it capital punishment,nmonetary penalty, revenge, or just expulsion from thenmarket. Ideologies relax individual constraints, replace themnwith collective constraints. Ideologies, insists Solzhenitsyn,nprovide an environment for mass slaughter and for anyncrime against humanity. People turn into either guinea pigsnor henchmen. Ideologies provide for their corporate membersnthe very justification for enslavement and unlimitednbrutality. This applies, according to Solzhenitsyn, to allnideologies, to all ideas which opted for incorporation intonideologies, not to Marxism alone: Christianity, the superioritynof Western civilization, patriotism, Nazism, etc.nSolzhenitsyn concludes that the main source of evil in thenworld is the very existence of ideological arrangements. Thisnis a disquieting conclusion for all intellectuals, much morendisconcerting than an economic philosophy that only relatednvarious assaults on freedom with ideas and ideologues,nwithout making a cost-benefit analysis. The dealers of ideasndo not want to bear individual responsibility for theirnunpredictable and precarious goods, nor risk their goodsnstored without use on dusty shelves. They complain thatnSolzhenitsyn wants to bring them to task. Actually, whatnSolzhenitsyn wants is to bring them back on the market.nThis is what he proposed in his widely misunderstoodnLetter to the Leaders of the Soviet Union: separationnbetween ideology and state. The dealers of ideas complainnthat Solzhenitsyn is after intellectual freedom and againstnfreedom as such, but Solzhenitsyn is only out to get thencollective free riders off people’s backs.n