There’s an old Jewish joke that runs this way:
A newspaper editor told a young intern she could have a regular job there if she could make a particular story interesting, namely the world meat shortage. So, she headed out for some interviews and came across four men standing on a corner, waiting for the light to change. She approached them with, “Excuse me. Could I ask your opinion of the world meat shortage?”
The American responded, “What’s a shortage?”
The Russian, “What’s meat?”
The Chinese, “What’s an opinion?”
The Israeli, “What’s ‘Excuse me’?”
Again, it’s a joke Jews tell on themselves, one that highlights their self-avowed, socially-insensitive disposition to lead with complaints.1 But let’s focus on the Russian. Why would the idea of meat puzzle him?
1. The late Ted Cohen, a Jewish professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, made a special study of the subject, and his book, Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters (University of Chicago Press, 1999) is a classic. It’s not surprising that Jews have produced the likes of Mel Brooks, Jerry Seinfeld, Jack Benny, George Burns, Rodney Dangerfield, Jerry Lewis, Woody Allen, Don Rickles, Billy Crystal, Buddy Hackett, Milton Berle, Albert Brooks, Elaine May, Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman, Howie Mandel, the Marx Brothers, Paul Reubens, and the Three Stooges—to name a few.
Moscow 1991
Well, in my experience, it makes sense. Back in November 1991, after the Iron Curtain fell and the USSR had devolved into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), I found myself in Moscow with Leighton Ford Ministries, teaching apologetics, preaching in the nearby cities of Ramenskoye and Istra, and witnessing to a Russian officer decked out in uniform on the Metro. (A local brother had translated my testimony, and I handed it to the man. In it, I said that, as an infantry officer, I’d trained for years—whether through Fulda-Gap map exercises at Fort Sheridan or “laser-tag” maneuvers against captured Soviet armor in the Mojave at Fort Irwin—to engage his troops in combat. But now, I’d come to him in the name of the Lord to lift up Christ.)
The Ford people had enlisted several of us Southern Baptists to help take advantage of new freedoms to bring fresh witness to the land. Our attendees had come from all over the former Soviet Union, and there were some underlying tensions in the room. It turns out that some of them had submitted to the previous regime’s strictures (e.g., no baptism till the age of 18) and others went renegade with clandestine congregations in the forest. But the Spirit kept those concerns at bay.
Throughout our time there, we found occasion to pop into Moscow, this jewel of the Communist system, to sample the sights and tastes. The hotel restaurant fare was adequate but uninspiring, and whatever meat there might have been on our plates was forgettable. Under those circumstances, it was a treat to get a burger at the new McDonald’s in the city and a frozen Snickers bar down on Arbat Street, the channel for things Western, for sale alongside homemade, touristy stuff like nesting dolls and fur hats with ear flaps. Indeed, Western culture was infiltrating the environment at every turn. The radio in my cab from Sheremetyevo Airport cranked out “Hotel California” by the Eagles, thanks to Radio Europa Plus. And when we got to our rooms, the TV offered a channel with round-the-clock MTV videos (most of the “factory second” variety).
As for the flights into and out of Moscow, the experiences were strikingly different. For my Aeroflot leg out of Amsterdam, we passengers had to lug our carry-ons up the aisle on something like linoleum to the back of the plane, where a big cargo net was draped over the pile. Then, when we landed, we had to take our turns walking to the back of the plane to retrieve our bags before reversing field to exit from the front.
A week later, as we awaited our departure on Swiss Air, we sat for the longest time in the airport restaurant waiting for our sullen waitress to bring out a simple order. But, once free from the “workers’ paradise,” our flight to Zurich was US-comfortable and our landing was amazing. The rain and fog were so dense that our touchdown was a surprise. Someone remarked that we were most fortunate that both the airport and the plane were set up electronically for no-visibility arrivals, thanks to the deliverances of capitalism.
For years, I’d heard of GUM, the massive, government-run store on Red Square across from the Kremlin, and I wanted to have a look. (The G stood for “Gosudarstvenny,” meaning “state.”) The building, constructed before the 1917 revolution, was grand, but the inset shops along the esplanade were not much to behold. A fair number were unoccupied, and many of those that were open had some empty shelves. I was struck both by the lack of color in packaging and the absence of refrigerated, glass-fronted displays, commonplace in American quick stops.
In this connection, I think of the astonishment that Western European soccer fans confessed when, in the US for the FIFA finals this year, they walked into Buc-ee’s, with its riot of color, sound, plenitude, and variety that overwhelmed their senses. If those 1991 GUM patrons had hit Buc-ee’s, they might have needed cot-and-IV stations to recover. And don’t forget their love affair with ranch dressing, the 1950s invention of a Nebraskan plumbing contractor who threw some ingredients together for a work crew in Alaska and later featured the concoction at a restaurant he started in what he renamed the “Hidden Valley” in California. There’s no telling what human ingenuity and initiative can generate within a vile, capitalist system.
New York
Mayor Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, has spoken longingly of “the end goal of seizing the means of production.” He said this at a 2021 convention of Young Democratic Socialists of America, but he’s too cagey to talk that way now. He’s dabbling in that conceit, however, setting up his own little “GUMs” in New York City. But they’re parasitic on capitalism, dependent upon the hustle and bustle of a market economy, where competition prompts companies to make their goods better and more attractive. Indeed, culinary innovation, promotion, refinement, and such are the tools of a free-market economy.
Turning to photos of the randomly-full shelves of Mamdani’s stores, we see, for instance, Cheez-It Crackers, Welch’s Fruit Snacks, Sour Patch Kids, Cheerios, and Pepsi. Yes, there’s fresh produce, meat, and dairy, but whether or not they’re canned goods or shrink-wrapped treats, their source is the business world, not the regime’s appendages. The private sector has bankrolled the orchards, harvesting, research and development, consumer trials, production facilities, branding, marketing, shipping, storing, and such. These are baked-in costs which must be covered by the normal stores before they can clear a profit. But the city can play Santa Claus with New Yorkers’ money, giving away, in effect, freebies to all comers. For instance, the 30% discount means that if you buy a three-pack of jumbo avocados, you get the third one free. It’s like food stamps. The government picks up the tab for free stuff, but without regard to qualification. Anyone can shop there. Isn’t that special!
As for the nearby bodega owners, they’re getting a small taste of the kulak treatment. Those were the peasant, small-farm owners in the Ukraine, the ones Stalin labeled stingy (literally “tight fisted”) enemies of the state. They fell victim to Stalin’s “Great Turning Point” (1928–29), which instituted the forced “collectivization” of the farms, “in effect a war declared by the Soviet state on a nation of small holders.” On December 27, 1929, Stalin demanded “the eradication of all kulak tendencies and the elimination of kulaks as a class.”2 As pro-Stalin, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty put it at the time, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.” Well, eggs were certainly broken. Witness, for instance, this Italian diplomatic report from Kharkiv:
2. Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, and Jean-Louis Margolin, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer (Harvard University Press, 1999), 147.
Every night the bodies of more than 250 people who have died from hunger or typhus are collected. Many of these bodies have had the liver removed, through a large slit in the abdomen. The police finally picked up some of these mysterious “amputators” who confessed that they were using the meat as filling for the meat pies that they were selling in the market.3
3. Courtois et al., Black Book of Communism, 165.
I’m not suggesting that the government is going to use Soviet tactics (including mass deportation and execution) to eliminate those “kulaks” who run Wegmans or Trader Joe’s in Manhattan, but Mamdani’s little grocery theater is striving to stigmatize those bloodsucking corporate types, setting them up for a fall. And if some precious bodegas have to collapse in the process, it’s collateral damage. Nevertheless, we see this mayoral drama queen smiling proudly for photo ops in attractive corners of his show shops.
Sure, there’s a place for the government to hand out freebies, whether through bulk food at FEMA shelters after natural disasters, in the form of USAID rice bags heaved off the back of trucks in ravaged foreign regions, or even as supplements to school food programs. (Including that “delectable” hominy they spooned out in our elementary school cafeteria.) Yes, there’s a place for welfare safety nets for innocent victims of serious misfortune. But Mamdani and his ilk are pitching nifty nets, for those who find rising prices inconvenient/stressful, incompatible with what they’re used to enjoying. But get real. Thanks to our enviable standard of living, an array of private-sector charities, governmental supplements, and the human capacity to seek out such help and modify behavior to reduce risk, hunger (as distinct from the manufactured specter of “food insecurity”) is not a threat in the Big Apple—and certainly there is no justification for embracing the socialist dream of statist bliss.
By the way, those Up-East folks are slow learners. In the early 1600s, Plymouth Plantation gave socialism a go, and it was a bust. Their learning curve is nicely traced in Heed the Pilgrims, written by longtime Lifeway curriculum editor, Nathaniel Sullivan. Apparently, private property turned out to be important to these seventeenth-century folks.
Nashville
Meanwhile, down in decidedly non-socialist Tennessee, WSM radio has designated Springer Mountain Farms chicken as the official edible bird of the Grand Ole Opry. Yes, there’s cash involved. The company regularly sponsors a 30-minute segment of the show, a promotion including a nightly drawing for a gift card for dinner at an associated restaurant. I’m sure that gives the brand a boost, but “official” doesn’t mean “state.”
I checked things out, running by three Nashville grocery stores: Sure enough, Springer products were in Kroger, Publix, and The Fresh Market. But so were chicken cuts from Farmer Focus, Perdue, Heritage Farms, Smart Way, Just Bare, Simple Truth, and GreenWise. Prices varied for three boneless breasts, from $4.40 to $8.99 a pound. And their various virtues were touted as being “organic, humanely raised, and traceable back to their farm origin” to “No Animal By-Products in Feed Ever” to “Cage Free.”
Continuing my store survey, I headed down to Costco in Brentwood, whose entryway was lined with colorful, cleaning-goods displays, each trumpeting improvements in their product—Febreze (the new formula, with “Up to 50% More Odor Fighting Ingredients”); Cascade (“Platinum Plus”); Mr. Clean (“Extra Durable” for the “Whole Home,” with “Magic Eraser”); Bounce (with “2X Power” and “25% More Sheets”); Swiffer (“Heavy Duty,” “Hair Magnet” with “2X Pick Up”); Tide (“Extra Concentrated”); and Gain (“30% More Freshness”). Whew!
And the consumer excitement continued from display to display throughout the store—snacks such as Skinny Dipped Dark Chocolate Coconut Almond Bites (assuring us their “Gluten Free” candy would contain “No Sugar Alcohols”); pet products like Outer Armor Dog Toys (made with “Dyna-Fuse Technology”) and Temptations Mixups (bearing the Catnip Fever trademark and sold in a “Stay Fresh Pack”); to grooming tools—the Gillette “Proglide 5 Plus” (with a “Bonus Handle,” “Comfort Boost Technology,” and “50% Longer Lasting Blades”); and cosmetics, such as Olay Regenerist 10 (the “Multi-Tasking,” “Anti-Aging” facial moisturizer, with “Advanced Niacinamide” but “No Parabens, Phthalates, or Synthetic Dyes”). And yes, there were Levi’s blue jeans, keenly coveted in the old USSR, but here they were, discounted in stacks alongside their counterparts from Izod, Kirkland, and Kenneth Cole.
It’s a free market riot, reflecting corporate brainstormings, manufacturing advancements, bold capital investments, sophisticated graphic arts, and such. This sort of thing blew the Soviet mind and was a major player in the collapse of the USSR. GUM wasn’t so much a sorry sight because of the breakup, but a sorry sight that helped precipitate the breakup.
Businessism’s Big, Gratifying, and Bracing Show on Earth
God is the stunning Creator at every turn. Now that my wife and I are into bird watching through our kitchen window, we’re learning all the more about their various looks, sounds, schedules, temperaments, pecking orders, and preferences in feed. One minute it’s a cluster of finches, and then a lone cardinal or blue jay. It’s chickadees now, sparrows then, and doves now and then.
We humans have that creative gene, and I’m thankful that we manifest it not only in the galleries, but also in the world of business. Yes, God alone creates carbon ex nihilo, but he enables and lets Taco Bell fold, roll, and splay it out in the form of tacos, burritos, and tostadas.
Think of the battle of ads in the insurance field, including Flo, Jamie, and Mara for Progressive, as well as the avuncular Dr. Rick (whom I happen to despise); Jake of State Farm; Doug and the Emu for Liberty Mutual; Mayhem for Allstate; and the J. K. Simmons “professor” for Farmers. Or such logos as the Nike swoosh, McDonald’s Golden Arches, and Starbucks mermaid.
The socialists love to hate on “capitalism,” a term which, I think, has a cold, august, and even puzzling sound to it. I’d prefer “businessism,” or perhaps a Southern version, “bidnessism.” But whatever you call it, this -ism rolls out an endless and often delightful cast of characters, turns of phrase, and such.
As engaging as the aesthetics of the free market are, it’s not for the faint of heart. I read today that Outback Steakhouse is closing forty of its restaurants nationwide. Rivals such as Texas Roadhouse and Longhorn Steakhouse have cut into their business with lower prices and larger portions. The cost of beef is up, and discretionary spending is tight in a lot of households. It’s not that Outback has shot itself in the foot as with Bud Light or the Cracker Barrel logo. It’s just a tough bidness world out there, and you have to stay on your toes.
Not so the Communists, whose state-car manufacturing was captured by iconic photos of an East German Trabant in a dumpster after the Iron Curtain fell. Its smoky, two-stroke engine and recycled-plastic body made it no match for newly-available Western automobiles, whose quality had been honed by global competition with European, North American, and East Asian cars.
GUM and East Berlin car dealerships operated in a closed system of state production and control. A stupid state of affairs. One that reminds me of another joke, with which I’ll close:
It had been a miserably cold winter for the troops at Valley Forge, and their beleaguered existence had left them hungry and dirty. General Washington called them together after months of deprivation and told them he had both good news and bad. “First, the good news: You all get a change of socks. Now, the bad: You all have to change with each other.”
