The wealthiest man alive today is Elon Musk, of course. But a few thousand years ago, the Golden Crown was held by Marcus Licinius Crassus. He was the Musk of his day: “The richest man in Rome.” And like Musk, Crassus was an inventor.
Crassus created the very first Roman fire department. It consisted of 500 brave, heroic firefighters who’d rush to a burning building … and then do absolutely nothing. Not unless — and not until — the homeowner negotiated with Crassus for their services. If the homeowner failed to fork over the money, Crassus’s firefighters let the home burn to the ground.
And then they looted the remains.
About 290 years ago, an American founding father launched a very different kind of fire department — one that served the public without extorting them. Franklin’s volunteer fire company was soon replicated across the New World.
Suffice it to say, history remembers Ben Franklin a wee bit better than Crassus. (And Franklin was a strange fellow. Good guy but weird guy.) Franklin is, quite literally, money — whereas Crassus is mostly remembered for a death so gruesome that HBO copied it on “Game of Thrones”:
In some ways, Crassus was a capitalist. He identified a gap in the marketplace — a lack of fire safety — and built a thriving business to fill the gap. And it wasn’t just Crassus who benefited, nor was it only his 500 employees: Presumably, the homeowners themselves valued the preservation of their homes more than the ransom.
Without Crassus’ service, they would’ve lost everything anyway. Hey, like it or not, he offered Roman homeowners the better option. In some ways, he was a hero!
But in other ways, he was a thug and an extortionist.
Ayn Rand’s masterpiece “Atlas Shrugged” is the best defense of capitalism anywhere in literature. She distilled the economic theory into its base parts: Capitalism is simply free men, trading freely, for the goods and services that they value most. In particular, the “Money Speech,” spoken by the character Francisco d’Anconia, ought to be required reading for schoolchildren:
So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce.
The speech goes on (and on and on… I mean, her book has over 1,000 pages). It’s still worth your time, but you get the gist of it. The essence of freedom is capitalism: Free people, trading freely, expressing their values as they see fit.
But the problem is that “free people” aren’t “trading freely” when one party is pointing a gun — or a housefire — at the other. Capitalism requires consideration, and by definition, consideration necessitates the freedom to consider.
Otherwise, it’s extortion.
It’s not “capitalism” to point a gun in someone’s face and demand his wallet. That’s a mugging.
This takes us to the rare earth minerals treaty that Ukraine is on the verge of signing with the United States. According to President Trump, it “could be a trillion-dollar deal.” Most importantly, “The American taxpayer is now going to get their money back.”
That’s great for the American taxpayer. But what does Ukraine get out of it?
According to Trump, Ukraine receives: “$350 billion and lots of equipment and military equipment and the right to fight on.”
Note his last five words: “The right to fight on.”
Because that’s really Ukraine’s motivation: It's in a life-and-death struggle with Russia and will do pretty much anything not to lose the war. If signing over Ukraine’s natural resources to a superpower with a really big military is the only way to survive, so be it.
Ukraine knows it's screwed if we abandon it.
So I assume it’s gonna be a really great deal for the United States. (Hey, we’re certainly negotiating from a position of strength!) Besides, you can’t really fault an American president for signing pro-American deals. That’s kind of his job.
But on the other hand, this deal feels dirty.
President Trump has been highly critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to Trump, Zelenskyy has been making a series of stupid, corrupt, short-sighted decisions that are destroying Ukraine’s future.
It could be that Zelenskyy just made another.
I dunno. I’m all for everyone getting their just deserts, but there’s something about this deal that feels a heckuva lot more like Cassius than Franklin.
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