Alongside Night(79)
“Let me close by saying that at the time of the arrests, neither myself nor any member of my family considered ourselves subversive. I would say, at this juncture, that I would now embrace that term heartily.”
After shattering applause had died out, Dr. Rampart turned to Elliot.
Elliot started to speak, found his throat dry, and sipped a glass of water. “Uh—there’s not much I can add to that,” he finally got out. “You’ve all seen the tapes of what happened in Cheshire. I was there. I lost my best friend there, a student from this school.” He paused to swallow. “His last act was handing out three infants, the only prisoners who survived. All I can say is, it’s up to you the sort of world they have when they grow up. If this is a revolution, then let’s not fuck it all up this time.” He paused a moment. “Uh—I guess that’s all.”
“Thank you, Elliot,” Dr. Rampart said. “I’ll open the floor to questions at this time.” She recognized Frieda Sandwell, who identified herself as representing ABC Television. “Dr. Rampart, inasmuch as you seem at this moment to have won your Alongside Night
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revolution, would you tell us what your Cadre intends doing with millions of civil servants?”
“We don’t intend ‘doing’ anything with or to them,” she replied. “Though I regard government workers as being among the worst victims of statism—forced by destruction of market opportunities into sterile bureaucracies—the Cadre have limited resources and cannot restore overnight an economy it took the government a century to destroy. Nonetheless, we can suggest an approach by which government workers can solve their own unemployment problems.”
Sarcastically, Freida Sandwell asked, “Would you enlighten us?”
“Surely,” Dr. Rampart answered, taking the question at face value. “With the exception of those government workers who perform no marketable service—tax collectors, regulators, and so on—we are urging them to declare their agencies independent from the government, and to organize themselves into free workers’ syndicates. Shares of stock could be issued to employees and pensioners by whatever method seems fair, and the resultant joint-stock companies could then hire professional managers to place the operation on a profitable footing. I can envision this for postal workers, municipal services, libraries, universities, and public schools, et cetera. As for those civil servants whose jobs are unmarketable, I suggest that most have skills in accounting, administration, computers, law, and so forth, that readily could be adapted to market demand. There’s the idea. It’s now up to those with the necessary interests to use it or come up with something better.”
Dr. Rampart recognized Carey Sanford of Liberation. “Is the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre a friend or foe of the corporate capitalists?”
“A foe. Agorist theory recognizes that most of the evils attributed to capitalism were true of it—but caused by its historic role of private industry working hand in hand with gov-250
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ernments. An extreme form of this is fascism.”
“But isn’t the Cadre itself a corporation?”
“Oh, my, no. We are a joint-stock company with all profits automatically reinvested to maximize operating capital—a deferred-profit venture, if you will. Corporations are creatures of the State, created by it and having two privileges that protect them from market pressures. First, corporate liability for damages to others is automatically limited by fiat; and second, responsibility is shifted away from individuals to a fictional entity. Each of the Cadre assumes full responsibility for his or her actions, though liabilities may be insured.” She saw another hand. “Yes?”
“Alan O’Neill, Time magazine. Who’ll run the highways?”
“Why ask me? I suggest you take it up with the American Automobile Association.”
Amidst laughter, Dr. Rampart recognized Halpern Sinclair of the Washington Post. “Dr. Vreeland. Does your presence here today indicate merely an alliance-of-convenience with the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre, or have you secretly been a member all along?”
“Neither one, Mr. Sinclair. Though I only came into direct contact with the Cadre this morning, I would not be sitting here were I not in agreement with the principles I have been assured the Cadre stand for.”
As Dr. Rampart recognized Waldo Hinckle of US News & World Report, who asked Guerdon a question regarding the costs of his military expansion, a reporter who had arrived late sat down on the seat in front of Lorimer, blocking her vision. She began looking around for another seat, and found one in the second row, getting up to head for it. Guerdon filled a pipe with nonaromatic burley. “If all two million U.S. military personnel signed on with us as reservists,” he said, “it would cost us a bit over one and a half billion eurofrancs this year. Add in another half billion for TacStrike—