We’re given new evidence that artists really are the antennae of their societies when, after a half-century, their perceptions are validated by events. The Occupy movement has been providing such validation for the perceptions in L.P. Hartley’s 1960 satire, Facial Justice. In that yarn, Hartley foresaw a dictator who rules the world after the Third World War. Believing that envy is the root of all social distress, he resolves to eradicate its causes, one by one. The ordinary social and economic inequalities are expunged by socialist “income redistribution.” However, envy persists: linguistic inequalities such as accent and grammar divide people, so they are soon placed under the control of the Language Police. But envy still persists, because—surprise!—some people are prettier than others. So the omnipotent State mandates plastic surgery for all, to eliminate those differences. Does that call to mind the masks worn by the occupiers—that vacuous, smiling face that made them all look alike? Hmmmm. The Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, assessing the politics of equalitarianism (as opposed to egalitarianism*) noted: “Is it really surprising that whenever you get striving for equality and fraternity, the guillotine appears on the scene?” Herbert Schlossberg, in his monumental work Idols for Destruction, observes:

Envy cannot be assuaged any more than cancer can be; both are pathologies whose very being requires expansion to their neighbours’ territory. There is no fence that will ever be respected, no limitation that will be recognized as legitimate, no sense of proportion or humility sufficient to smother a sense of inferiority. By its nature, envy is expansive, regardless of the realities it encounters.

That perfectly explains the motto of the one percent or less that has been masquerading as the 99 percent: “Eat the rich.” CHP Canada has always supported free enterprise, the economic system that has created more wealth and distributed it more widely than any other in human history. But it must be admitted that, as Richard DeVos once wrote, “Capitalism, if it is not tempered by Christian compassion, is really no better than communism.” Greed, and the politics of envy, is to be found inside the citadels of Wall Street as well as in the encampments outside. Government policy should not be to manipulate trade, but merely to ensure that it is fair and honest. Then free exchanges between buyer and seller will benefit both. *Egalitarianism means that all citizens are equal before the law, and have equal opportunities, which it is up to them to exploit according to their own talents, diligence and dedication; equalitarianism mandates that social and legal conditions must be rigged by government so that outcomes are equal. That, alas, is where we’ve been heading for half a century or more—and it’s destroying us.