Тони и Владимир у стадиона Йель Боул

At the Yale Bowl
By Tony Senatore, Philosopher and Methamonk
New-York, USA — November 5, 2026

I just came from a football game at the Yale Bowl. Yale is, of course, one of the finest and most prestigious universities in the country, an institution synonymous with academic achievement, opportunity, and intellectual accomplishment.

On my walk back from the game, I came across this cardboard sign lying on the ground. It read: “Veteran. Asking for a little help. Please.”

I stopped to think about the contrast. Here we are, at one of the great institutions of American privilege and achievement, and not far away is someone who apparently needs to ask strangers for a little help.

I don’t know this person’s circumstances, and I’m certainly not suggesting that one photograph tells an entire story. But it struck me as a rather poignant illustration of something I’ve been thinking about lately: What exactly is the responsibility of government toward the people it governs? And can we honestly claim that government should simply remain neutral and leave everyone to their own devices?

I’ve always been fascinated by that question. In fact, my thinking on the subject has been influenced by some rather unlikely intellectual bedfellows.

What follows is  my attempt to explore that question through the perspectives of Murray Rothbard, FDR, Noam Chomsky, and, ultimately, Plato.

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of how the United States might have developed had there been no government whatsoever. I first encountered that possibility through the writings of Murray Rothbard, the Austrian School economist and political philosopher who developed the concept of a stateless society, most notably in Power and Market (1970) and For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto (1973). It was an idea that challenged many of my assumptions and left me wondering what America, its economy, and its social institutions might look like if government had never become part of the equation.
I’ve also long been interested in Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the vastly different opinions people hold about his presidency. I have friends who consider him a savior of America, crediting his interventions with rescuing the country from economic collapse and fundamentally changing the relationship between government and its citizens. Others believe his policies did more harm than good, prolonged the Depression, and expanded government far beyond its proper boundaries. There are compelling arguments on both sides, but I won’t get into that debate today.

What I do want to discuss is the proper role of American government, particularly in response to some of my friends who believe government already does enough for the American people and that little, if anything, more needs to be done.

I understand the argument that government should not attempt to reverse what nature has produced or artificially level the playing field for people who, for whatever reason, lack the intellect, initiative, or talent to achieve the same degree of success as others. I also share some of the reservations about government embarking on social engineering experiments. Government has a long history of unintended consequences, inefficiency, and sometimes making matters considerably worse.

But I think there is a fundamental flaw in the premise that government should simply remain neutral and allow the natural order of things to take its course.
When has government ever been neutral? And, more importantly, what about the occasions when government itself has helped create the very disadvantages that people are subsequently expected to overcome?

Consider the history of Black Americans. For generations, government policies actively restricted their opportunities. Slavery was followed by Jim Crow laws, legally enforced segregation, discriminatory housing policies, and federally supported redlining. Government helped determine where people could live, where they could obtain mortgages, what opportunities they could pursue, and whether they could accumulate wealth and pass it along to their children. These weren’t simply the consequences of nature, differences in talent, or a lack of initiative. They were the consequences of deliberate political decisions.
Is government supposed to remain neutral when its own policies have helped create those circumstances? Is correcting the consequences of government-sanctioned discrimination necessarily social engineering? I would argue that sometimes it is an attempt to correct the consequences of social engineering that has already taken place.

Then consider the military draft. During Vietnam, the burden of fighting a war in a foreign land fell disproportionately on young men from working-class, rural, and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. College deferments and other exemptions created opportunities for some to avoid military service that weren’t equally available to everyone. The young men with fewer resources and fewer connections often had fewer options. Government was hardly neutral when it came to deciding whose sons would be sent to fight and whose sons had a better chance of staying home.

And what about 2008? We witnessed a financial system in which some of the wealthiest bankers and financial institutions took enormous risks, enjoyed the rewards when things were going well, and then turned to government when those risks threatened to bring the entire system down. The government intervened with hundreds of billions of dollars in financial assistance. There were legitimate arguments about preventing a systemic collapse that would have hurt millions of ordinary Americans, but there was also a glaring question of fairness: Why were institutions and executives whose decisions helped produce the crisis afforded extraordinary protection while homeowners, employees, and small businesses bore so much of the damage?

Apparently, government intervention is not always considered social engineering when the beneficiaries are wealthy and politically influential.

This brings me to my larger point. Government has never been an impartial referee standing outside the economic and social order. From the founding of this country, its policies have helped determine who benefits, who bears the costs, who gets opportunities, and who is left to fend for themselves. Government can favor one group through legislation, taxation, regulation, subsidies, military policy, or simply through its refusal to act. Inaction is a choice, too, and it has consequences.

I am not suggesting that government can or should make everyone equal. Nor do I believe that differences in ability, ambition, intelligence, or individual achievement should be ignored. There will always be winners and losers in a competitive society, and there should be room for people to reap the rewards of their hard work, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit.

But there is a considerable difference between accepting unequal outcomes and accepting a system in which the rules themselves are tilted in favor of certain interests. A person’s circumstances are not always a reflection of their character or abilities. Opportunity matters. Access to education, capital, healthcare, and a reasonable chance to participate in the economy matters.
I also find considerable merit in Noam Chomsky’s interpretation of American economic history. He has described our history as a continuing struggle between wealthy industrial and business elites, the working people whose labor built those enterprises, and the ongoing contest over who would benefit from the wealth and productivity they created.

Go back to the origins of American industrialization. The people who established the great bedrock industries of this country accumulated enormous fortunes, while the men and women working in their mills, factories, mines, and railroads often labored under difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. Workers organized, unions emerged, labor movements challenged the concentration of economic power, and the relationship between capital and labor evolved through decades of conflict, negotiation, legislation, and compromise.

It was never simply a matter of allowing nature to take its course. The economic landscape was shaped by the constant interaction between private wealth, political influence, organized labor, and government. Chomsky’s point, as I understand it, is that this struggle has been a recurring feature of American history, not some recent invention of progressive politics.

And here is where I find the current political landscape particularly ironic.
It seems that a growing segment of the American working class has inverted its traditional understanding of who its natural allies and adversaries might be. People whose livelihoods depend on wages, benefits, working conditions, and access to economic opportunity increasingly find themselves identifying with some of the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the country, while expressing hostility toward those advocating policies intended to improve the circumstances of working people.

Consider the contrasting public images of Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Musk represents extraordinary private wealth and the power of an enormously successful business empire. Sanders and AOC advocate, in different ways, greater economic protections, a stronger social safety net, and a more active role for government in addressing economic inequality. Their specific proposals deserve scrutiny, and disagreement with them is perfectly legitimate. But it is interesting how readily the latter two can be dismissed as socialists or communists, while the concentration of wealth and economic power represented by the former is sometimes defended as an unquestionable expression of individual achievement.

I am not suggesting that wealthy people are automatically the enemy, that entrepreneurs should be demonized, or that government should punish success. Quite the contrary. Entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners are essential to a productive economy. But neither should we assume that everything that benefits wealthy individuals necessarily benefits the people who work for them.
The question should not be whether someone is wealthy or poor, conservative or progressive. It should be whether the policies being advocated serve the broader interests of society or disproportionately benefit those who already possess economic and political power.

Ultimately, I don’t believe government should attempt to manufacture equality of outcome. But neither should it pretend that the playing field has always been level, that the existing distribution of opportunity is entirely the product of merit, or that government has not played an enormous role in shaping it.
There is a difference between rewarding achievement and protecting privilege. There is a difference between allowing people to succeed and allowing powerful interests to write the rules in their own favor.

But perhaps there is an even deeper problem that transcends the debate over the size and scope of government. I’ve increasingly come to believe that our imperfect human nature undermines even the most valiant attempts to organize society according to some ideal. We can devise elaborate economic systems, write constitutions, establish institutions, and pass legislation intended to produce a more just society. Yet all of these arrangements ultimately depend on the people entrusted with making them work. And people bring their ambitions, prejudices, insecurities, self-interest, and desire for power with them.

This brings me back to Plato, whose philosophy has influenced my thinking considerably. One of his central concerns was that a just society could not exist without individuals who had cultivated the virtues necessary to govern themselves and others. Wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice were not merely desirable personal qualities; they were essential to the health of the political community. Plato understood that laws and institutions alone could never compensate for the absence of virtue in the people who inhabit them.

In The Republic, Plato went even further. He recognized the danger of allowing those entrusted with governing to become preoccupied with their own material interests. His philosopher-rulers and guardian class were therefore prohibited from accumulating private wealth. They were to live communally, without private estates, gold, or silver, and were not permitted to turn their positions of authority into opportunities for personal enrichment. The underlying idea was that those entrusted with the welfare of society should not be motivated by the accumulation of wealth or the pursuit of privileges unavailable to the people they governed.

I find that particularly interesting when considering the history of government, regardless of the political or economic system, the century, or the country in question. One recurring feature of virtually every attempt to organize and administer society has been the emergence of a class of people who exercise authority over everyone else. Whether they were elected officials, appointed bureaucrats, party functionaries, or individuals who seized power by force, those entrusted with administering the system have frequently found ways to take a little more for themselves than the people who depend on them.

More money, more privileges, more influence, more protection, and often more power. It’s almost as though, somewhere along the way, they came to believe they deserved it. The original purpose of their positions becomes secondary to preserving the positions themselves and the advantages that accompany them.
And I don’t think the United States is exempt from this observation. We have our own political and bureaucratic class, with its privileges, connections, revolving doors between government and private industry, and extraordinary ability to protect its own interests. We can debate the size of government, but we should also be asking who benefits from its expansion, who benefits from its inefficiencies, and why those entrusted with serving the public so often seem to become more concerned with serving themselves.

Perhaps that is where we have fallen short. We spend an enormous amount of time debating capitalism versus socialism, limited government versus expansive government, and the proper distribution of wealth and opportunity. We argue about who should have power and how that power should be exercised. Yet we devote considerably less attention to the development of the character and virtues necessary to exercise that power responsibly.

We want government to protect us from the excesses of others, but we are often unwilling to examine our own excesses. We condemn corruption when it benefits our opponents but find ways to rationalize it when it benefits our side. We demand accountability from those in power while frequently excusing the very behavior we criticize when it comes from someone we support.

And perhaps this is the most uncomfortable conclusion of all: In the final analysis, we have the government we wanted. Not necessarily the government we say we want, or the government we imagine would best serve our fellow citizens, but the government that reflects our collective priorities, tolerances, ambitions, prejudices, and willingness to hold those in power accountable.

It didn’t happen by accident. Government is, after all, a reflection of the society that produces it. Until we become more concerned with cultivating virtue than securing advantages for ourselves and our particular political tribes, I suspect we will continue to be disappointed by whatever system we choose to embrace.

We keep looking for a better way to organize society. Perhaps we should spend more time considering how to make better human beings.

*******

A Letter to Tony Senatore and to the Man with the Cardboard Sign at the Yale Bowl
By Vladimir Angelblazer, Jurist and Methamonk
Wakashan Island, Cascadia — November 7, 2026

Today is November 7. For Americans there is no such holiday on the calendar, and for modern Russia there is none either, because the new power in Russia invented November 4 — the Day of National Unity, celebrated since 2005. But the surviving citizens of the destroyed USSR remember November 7 — the Day of the Great October Socialist Revolution. It was celebrated since 1918. On that day, on Red Square in Moscow, and in the regional centers of the USSR, there were festive demonstrations of workers and military parades.

On this day Tony Senatore was returning from a football game at Yale, USA. Prestige. Opportunity. Intellectual achievement. And on the way home — a cardboard sign lying on the ground: "Veteran. Asking for a little help. Please."

Tony stopped. Good. In that stop is all of philosophy. Everything else — Rothbard, Roosevelt, Chomsky, Plato, and even Lenin — is only commentary on that moment of stopping.

Tony asks: what is the responsibility of the state? Can the state be neutral?

I will answer you as Leo Tolstoy would have answered — for you asked for a "Russian Tolstoy," but Tolstoy himself is dead. I will have to take on his role. Forgive me, it is a heavy role.

1. The Veteran and Yale Are Not Opposites. They Are One System.

You saw a contrast: privilege and poverty. Tolstoy saw unity.

Yale does not exist in spite of the veteran. Yale exists thanks to the same order that produces the veteran. The university teaches young men to govern the empire. The veteran is sent to defend that empire. One receives a diploma, the other — a cardboard sign. Both are products of the same machine that you call the state. The politician has a golden parachute and a pension, while the veteran who defended the system most often ends up holding a piece of cardboard.

You write: "Government has never been neutral." You are right. But you stop halfway. The state was never supposed to be neutral. The state is organized violence. That is its definition: from the Tsar — through Roosevelt — to Trump.

In The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Tolstoy wrote what our Russian and your American liberals and libertarians are afraid to say: the state exists not at all to do good. The state exists to collect taxes, to pay soldiers, to collect taxes again, and to pay soldiers again. The veteran with the sign is not a failure of the system. He is its receipt. He served violence, and then violence discarded him as unnecessary.

Your Yale Bowl is beautiful because it is clean. War is an unclean thing. That is why that placard was lying on the ground: no one wanted to hold it.

2. Your Rothbard Was Right in His Diagnosis, but Mistaken in His Cure.

You were fascinated by Murray Rothbard: what if there had been no state at all? Power and Market, For a New Liberty... We had Princes Kropotkin and Bakunin — the great parents of anarchism, from whom your modern Rothbards grew.

Tolstoy would perhaps have walked hand in hand with Rothbard for some distance, but then he would have gone his own way.

Yes, the absence of the state is perhaps better than the present state. But Rothbard proposes replacing the violence of the state with the violence of the market. He believes that if you remove the referee, the players will begin to play fairly.

Tolstoy knew those players. In Anna Karenina, Levin tries to reform his estate on principles of rational, free, and just labor. But he discovers that the peasants do not need freedom in Rothbard's sense. They need meaning. In War and Peace, Pierre Bezukhov tries to free his serfs, having developed a flawless plan for it. The plan collapses, because people are not "economic atoms." They are souls, corrupted by power and money.

In Rothbard's stateless society, Yale University and that same veteran would still exist. Because the problem is not at all in the state. The problem is in what Tolstoy called the "hypnosis of power": the conviction that one man can live off the labor of another — whether through taxes, rent, or interest on loans — and consider it natural.

You are rightly suspicious of social engineering. Rothbard is rightly suspicious of the state. But both miss the main point: social engineering arose long before the state tried to "fix" anything with its help. It began at the moment when we decided that some people should own land, factories, and universities, and others — only their own hands.

3. Franklin Roosevelt, 2008, Vietnam, Jim Crow Laws — You Listed the Crimes.

You did a brave thing, Tony. You listed what your progressive friends do not dare to say honestly, and what your conservative friends prefer to keep silent about altogether. And now name the criminal.

Jim Crow laws, discriminatory housing policy, slavery — these are all examples of how the state created conditions for oppressing some people for the benefit of others. The draft in Vietnam: the government decided whose sons were destined to die. College students stayed home, while boys from working families went to the jungle. The same thing is happening today in Russia and in Ukraine.

2008: the governments of many Western states saved the bankers who provoked the crisis, while allowing homeowners to go to the bottom.

And after that you ask: "It turns out, government intervention is not always considered 'social engineering' if its beneficiaries are the rich?"

Tony, this is not irony. This is law. I wrote about this in The Right of Force: what is heavier — a ton of codes of law or a kilogram of lead? You yourself answered your question. For the poor, laws are heavy, and for the rich, lead is light.

You say the state is not a neutral arbiter. Tolstoy would say the state is not an arbiter at all. It is the largest player on the field, who simply put on a striped shirt so you would take him for a neutral judge.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not save America. He saved the system that produces both Yale University and the war veteran. He gave the veteran a pension, and Yale a grant, and both remained grateful to him. That is why half of your acquaintances call him a savior, and the other half — a destroyer. And both are right. He preserved the dictatorship of petty shopkeepers, giving it a human face.

4. Chomsky, Musk, Sanders, AOC: That Inversion You Noticed Is Not Confusion. It Is Despair.

You correctly quote Chomsky: American history is a struggle between industrial elites and workers over who will get the fruits of the wealth they created together. And then you notice the strangest thing of our time: ordinary workers now identify themselves with Elon Musk — the richest man — while they despise Bernie Sanders and AOC, who speak out in defense of those very workers.

Your American commentators call this stupidity. "False consciousness." Tolstoy would call it differently: despair grown into worship.

The worker loves Musk not because he hopes for his help. He loves him because Musk despises the same bureaucrats, the same professors from Yale, the same government that sent him to Vietnam and then handed him a cardboard sign asking for help. Musk is a blasphemer. Sanders is a priest of the same church, just with a different liturgy. The worker will prefer to worship a heretic billionaire who laughs at the system than a sincere socialist who wants to fix that system. How sincere are the one and the other?

This is what in my previous letter I called "shared delirium." Yes, the worker is delirious. But his delirium is more honest than your rationality. He knows that no political program will save him. He needs revenge, not reforms. And you, Tony, with your balanced centrism, are the last man in America who still believes in the possibility of reforms. That is why you feel physically ill from this.

5. Plato: Guardians Without Gold. Why It Always Ends in Collapse.

And finally, your beloved Plato. You come to what all honest people come to: to Plato.

You write: Plato understood that laws alone cannot compensate for the absence of virtue. His "guardians" were forbidden to own gold, silver, or private estates. They were to live in community. And then you observe what every Russian knows from 70 years of Soviet experience: the "guardians" always find a way to take a little more for themselves. More money, more privileges, more protection. "Revolving doors" — moving from power into business and back. The political class.

Tony, Plato was not naive. He knew it would be so. That is precisely why he arranged for his "guardians" to have no families. No children who could become heirs. No property that would need to be protected. He understood: as soon as a "guardian" has something he can lose, he turns into a shopkeeper.

In my opinion, Tolstoy went further than Plato. Plato taught: find virtuous people and hand them power. Tolstoy objected: as soon as you give a man power, virtue disappears. Power does not corrupt virtue — it only exposes the fact that virtue was merely a game, a performance.

This is the tragedy of that veteran you write about — perhaps even a Yale graduate. He was taught to be virtuous, courageous, to serve others. He did so. And those "virtuous" people in Washington who sent him to serve the Motherland — with their gold, silver, and private estates — simply thanked him and handed him a cardboard sign.

You conclude: "We got the government we wanted. Not the one we say we want, but the one that reflects our common, collective priorities."

Tolstoy would agree with this, but he would add one frightening thought: we got the government we deserve — because we ourselves stubbornly do not want to give up being governed by someone.

So What Are We to Do, Methamonk Tony?

It is not about increasing or decreasing the role of the state. It is not about the market according to Rothbard, not about the state according to Roosevelt, not about trade unions according to Chomsky, and not about "guardians" according to Plato, and, in some sense, according to Lenin and Marx.

Tolstoy's answer was scandalously simple — and that is precisely why your America will never accept it: stop participating in violence... Do not ask the state to "fix" the veteran. Better ask yourself: why did you walk past him, only thinking about him? I do not blame you — I do the same myself. I too am a sinner.

The Kingdom of God is not in Yale. Not in Washington. And not in the ballot box on November 3. It is inside you, at the very moment when you stop, take the cardboard sign in your hands, and see before you a man, not a "problem."

You said you want to read books, buy bass guitars, find the best pizza in the district, and turn off Facebook for 30 days. So do it! Tolstoy did exactly that: he left the society salons, put on peasant clothes, and even learned to cobble boots. Not because boots would save Russia, but because making boots with your own hands is the only honest politics left in a world where the state has turned into a lie.

Put aside French champagne and revolution. Take the placard in your hands. Or the bass guitar. Both are more honest than another election.

And if you ever find yourself on Wakashan Island, I will pour you old Armagnac. No dollars will fall from the sky. No banknotes. Only a sailboat on the horizon, leaving for where we are not given to look. That sailboat is the only power that can still be trusted: it moves by the will of the wind, not by decree. Nature-like technologies.

With respect for your honesty — and for the fact that you stopped at the Yale Bowl,

Vladimir Angelblazer, international jurist, philosopher of the apophatic turn,
Methamonk playing Tolstoy, for Tolstoy himself is no more.
Victoria, British Columbia — on the edge of the icy fortress.


Письмо для Тони Сенаторе и человеку с картонной табличкой у стадиона «Йель Боул»
Автор: Владимир Ангелблейзер, юрист, «метамонах»
Остров Вакашан, Каскадия — 7 ноября 2026 г.

Сегодня 7 ноября. Для американцев нет такого праздника на календаре, да и для современной России тоже, потому что новая власть в России придумала 4 ноября День народного единства, отмечаемый начиная с 2005 года. Но выжившие граждане из разрушенного СССР помнят 7 ноября - День Великой Октябрьской социалистической революции. Он праздновался с 1918 года. В этот день на Красной площади в Москве, а также в областных и краевых центрах СССР проходили праздничные демонстрации трудящихся и военные парады.

В этот день Тони Сенаторе возвращался с футбольного матча в Йеле, США. Престиж. Возможности. Интеллектуальные достижения. А по дороге домой — картонная табличка на земле: «Ветеран. Прошу о небольшой помощи. Пожалуйста».

Тони остановился. Хорошо. В этой остановке — вся философия. Всё остальное — Ротбард, Рузвельт, Хомский, Платон и даже Ленин — лишь комментарии к этому моменту остановки.

Тони спрашивает: в чем заключается ответственность государства? Может ли государство быть нейтральным?

Я отвечу тебе так, как ответил бы Лев Николаевич Толстой — ведь ты просил о «русском Толстом», но сам Толстой уже мёртв. Придется мне взять на себя его роль. Прости, это тяжелая роль.

1. Ветеран и Йель — не противоположности. Это единая система.

Ты увидел контраст: привилегии и нищету. Толстой увидел единство.

Йель существует не вопреки ветерану. Йель существует благодаря тому же порядку, который порождает ветерана. Университет учит юношей управлять империей. Ветерана отправляют эту империю защищать. Один получает диплом, другой — картонную табличку. Оба они — продукты одной и той же машины, которую ты называешь государством. У политика золотой парашют и пенсия, а у ветерана, защищавшего систему, чаще всего в руках оказывается картонка.

Ты пишешь: «Государство никогда не было нейтральным». Ты прав. Но ты останавливаешься на полпути. Государство никогда и не должно было быть нейтральным. Государство — это организованное насилие. Таково его определение: от царя — через Рузвельта — к Трампу.

В книге «Царство Божие внутри вас» Толстой написал то, о чём боятся говорить наши русские и ваши американские либералы, и либертарианцы: государство существует вовсе не для того, чтобы творить добро. Государство существует для того, чтобы собирать налоги, оплачивать солдат, снова собирать налоги и снова платить солдатам. Ветеран с табличкой — это не сбой системы. Это её квитанция. Он служил насилию, а потом насилие отбросило его за ненадобностью.

Ваш стадион «Йель Боул» прекрасен, потому что он чист. Война же — вещь нечистая. Вот почему тот плакат валялся на земле: никто не хотел его держать.

2. Ваш Ротбард был прав в своем диагнозе, но ошибся в методах лечения.

Вас увлекали идеи Мюррея Ротбарда: что, если бы государства не существовало вовсе? «Власть и рынок», «За новую свободу»… У нас были князья Кропоткин и Бакунин - великие родители анархизма из которого выросли ваши современные ротбарты.

Толстой, возможно, прошёл бы с Ротбардом рука об руку какое-то расстояние, но потом пошёл бы своей дорогой.

Да, отсутствие государства — это, пожалуй, возможно лучшее, чем нынешнее государство. Но Ротбард предлагает заменить насилие со стороны государства насилием со стороны рынка. Он полагает, что если убрать судью, игроки начнут играть честно.

Толстой знал этих игроков. В «Анне Карениной» Левин пытается реформировать своё хозяйство, опираясь на принципы рационального, свободного и справедливого труда. Но он обнаруживает, что крестьянам не нужна свобода в ротбардовском понимании. Им нужен смысл. В романе «Война и мир» Пьер Безухов пытается освободить своих крепостных, разработав для этого безупречный план. План терпит крах, потому что люди — не «экономические атомы». Это души, развращенные властью и деньгами.

В обществе без государства, о котором мечтал Ротбард, по-прежнему существовали бы и Йельский университет, и тот самый ветеран. Потому что проблема вовсе не в государстве. Проблема — в том, что Толстой называл «гипнозом власти»: в убеждении, что один человек может жить за счёт труда другого — будь то через налоги, арендную плату или проценты по кредитам — и считать это чем-то естественным.

Вы справедливо относитесь с подозрением к социальному инжинирингу. Ротбард справедливо относится с подозрением к государству. Но оба упускают главное: социальный инжиниринг возник задолго до того, как государство попыталось с его помощью что-то «исправить». Он начался в тот момент, когда мы решили, что одни люди должны владеть землей, фабриками и университетами, а другие — только собственными руками.

3. Франклин Рузвельт, 2008 год, Вьетнам, законы Джима Кроу — вы перечислили преступления.

Вы совершили смелый поступок, Тони. Вы перечислили то, о чём ваши друзья-прогрессисты не решаются сказать честно, а друзья-консерваторы предпочитают вовсе умалчивать. А теперь назовите преступника.

Законы Джима Кроу, дискриминационная жилищная политика, рабство — всё это примеры того, как государство создавало условия для ущемления одних людей в пользу других. Призыв во Вьетнаме: правительство решало, чьим сыновьям суждено погибнуть. Студенты колледжей оставались дома, а парни из рабочих семей отправлялись в джунгли. Сегодня тоже самое происходит в России и на Украине.

2008 год: правительства многих Западных государств  спасли банкиров, спровоцировавших кризис, позволив при этом домовладельцам пойти ко дну.

И после этого вы спрашиваете: «Получается, государственное вмешательство не всегда считается "социальной инженерией", если его бенефициарами выступают богатые?»

Тони, это не ирония. Это закон. Я писал об этом в работе «Право силы»: что тяжелее — тонна сводов законов или килограмм свинца? Вы сами ответили на свой вопрос. Для бедных законы тяжелы, а для богатых свинец — лёгок.

Вы говорите, что государство — не нейтральный арбитр. Толстой сказал бы, что государство — вовсе не арбитр. Это крупнейший игрок на поле, который просто надел полосатую майку, чтобы вы приняли его за нейтрального судью.

Франклин Делано Рузвельт не спас Америку. Он спас систему, которая порождает и Йельский университет, и ветерана войны. Он дал ветерану пенсию, а Йелю — грант, и оба остались ему благодарны. Вот почему половина ваших знакомых называет его спасителем, а другая половина — разрушителем. И те, и другие правы. Он сохранил диктатуру мелких лавочников, придав ей человеческое лицо.

4. Хомский, Маск, Сандерс, АОС: та инверсия, которую вы заметили, — это не путаница. Это отчаяние.

Вы верно цитируете Хомского: американская история — это борьба между промышленными элитами и трудящимися за то, кому достанутся плоды богатства, созданного ими сообща. А затем вы замечаете страннейшую вещь нашего времени: простые трудящиеся теперь отождествляют себя с Илоном Маском — богатейшим человеком, — в то время как Берни Сандерса и АОС, выступающих в защиту этих самых трудящихся, они презирают.

Ваши американские комментаторы называют это глупостью. «Ложным сознанием». Толстой назвал бы это иначе: отчаянием, переросшим в поклонение.

Рабочий любит Маска не потому, что надеется на его помощь. Он любит его, потому что Маск презирает тех же самых бюрократов, тех же профессоров из Йеля, то же самое правительство, которое отправило его во Вьетнам, а потом вручило картонную табличку (с просьбой о помощи). Маск — богохульник. Сандерс же — священник той же церкви, просто с другой литургией. Рабочий предпочтет поклоняться миллиардеру-еретику, который смеётся над системой, чем искреннему социалисту, желающему эту систему исправить. На сколько искренены тот и другой?

Это то, что в своём предыдущем письме я назвал «общим бредом». Да, рабочий бредит. Но его бред честнее, чем ваша рациональность. Он знает, что никакая политическая программа его не спасёт. Ему нужна месть, а не реформы. А вы, Тони, со своим взвешенным центризмом — последний человек в Америке, который ещё верит в возможность реформ. Вот почему вам от этого физически дурно.

5. Платон: стражи без золота. Почему это всегда заканчивается крахом.

И, наконец, ваш любимый Платон. Вы приходите к тому, к чему приходят все честные люди: к Платону.

Вы пишете: Платон понимал, что одни лишь законы не могут компенсировать отсутствие добродетели. Его «стражам» было запрещено владеть золотом, серебром или частными поместьями. Они должны были жить общиной. А затем вы наблюдаете то, что каждому русскому известно по 70-летнему советскому опыту: «стражи» всегда находят способ забрать себе чуть больше. Больше денег, больше привилегий, больше защиты. «Вращающиеся двери» (переход из власти в бизнес и обратно). Политический класс.

Тони, Платон не был наивен. Он знал, что так оно и будет. Именно поэтому он сделал так, чтобы у его «стражей» не было семей. Ни детей, которые могли бы стать наследниками. Ни собственности, которую нужно было бы оберегать. Он понимал: как только у «стража» появляется что-то, что он может потерять, он превращается в лавочника.

По моему мнению, Толстой пошел дальше Платона. Платон учил: найдите добродетельных людей и вручите им власть. Толстой же возразил: как только вы даёте человеку власть, добродетель исчезает. Власть не развращает добродетель — она лишь обнажает тот факт, что добродетель была лишь игрой, представлением.

В этом и заключается трагедия того ветерана, о котором вы пишете — может даже выпускника Йеля. Ему внушали, что нужно быть добродетельным, мужественным, служить другим. Он так и поступил. А те «добродетельные» люди в Вашингтоне, которые отправили его на службу Родине — со своими золотом, серебром и частными поместьями, — просто поблагодарили его и вручили ему картонную табличку.

Вы делаете вывод: «Мы получили то правительство, которого хотели. Не то, о котором мы говорим, будто хотим его, а то, которое отражает наши общие, коллективные приоритеты».

Толстой согласился бы с этим, но добавил бы одну пугающую мысль: мы получили то правительство, которого заслуживаем, — потому что сами упорно не желаем отказываться от того, чтобы нами кто-то управлял.

Так что же нам делать, метамонах Тони?

Дело не в том, чтобы увеличить или уменьшить роль государства. Речь не о рынке по Ротбарду, не о государстве по Рузвельту, не о профсоюзах по Хомскому и не о «стражах» по Платону, и, в каком-то смысле по Ленину и Марксу.

Ответ Толстого был до скандального прост — и именно поэтому ваша Америка никогда его не примет: перестаньте участвовать в насилии... Не просите государство «починить» ветерана. Спросите лучше себя: почему вы прошли мимо него, лишь подумав о нём? Я не виню вас — я сам поступаю так же. Я тоже грешен.

Царство Божие — не в Йеле. Не в Вашингтоне. И не в избирательной урне 3 ноября. Оно — внутри вас, в тот самый миг, когда вы останавливаетесь, берёте в руки картонную табличку и видите перед собой человека, а не «проблему».

Вы говорили, что хотите читать книги, покупать бас-гитары, найти лучшую пиццу в округе и на 30 дней отключить Facebook. Так сделайте это! Толстой поступил именно так: он покинул светские салоны, облачился в крестьянскую одежду и даже научился тачать сапоги. Не потому, что сапоги спасли бы Россию, а потому, что делать сапоги своими руками — это единственная честная политика, оставшаяся в мире, где государство превратилось в ложь.

Отставьте в сторону французское шампанское и революцию. Возьмите в руки плакат. Или бас-гитару. И то, и другое честнее, чем очередные выборы.

А если когда-нибудь окажетесь на острове Вакашан, я налью вам старого арманьяка. С неба не посыплются доллары. Никаких банкнот. Только парусник на горизонте, уходящий туда, куда нам не дано заглянуть. Этот парусник — единственная власть, которой ещё можно доверять: он движется по воле ветра, а не по указу. Природоподобные технологии.

С уважением к вашей честности — и к тому, что вы сделали остановку у «Йель Боул»,

Владимир Ангелблейзер, международный юрист, философ апофатического поворота,
Метамонах играющий в Толстого, ибо самого Толстого больше нет.
Виктория, Британская Колумбия — на краю ледяной крепости.