Prof. Michael Pakaluk reviews Sohrab Ahmari’s controversial new book.
Oliver Anthony of “Rich Men North of Richmond” fame has got all kinds of people wanting to identify with “the working man.” So, for instance, it has become a big fad to wear trucker’s hats. Of which one of the most popular reads: “Born to hunt. Forced to work.” Which captures perfectly how “the working man” views the world of work. He’s forced to do it. But of course he does it well. And that’s the nobility in it.
Nevertheless, if he can ameliorate that feeling of “being forced,” say, by working in a family business, as a sole proprietor or independent tradesman, or as an expert whose judgment counts – then that’s good.
Also, if he must work for a boss, he generally does not want a second, union boss additionally telling him what to do. And he resents the hidden government boss of compliance, with its threats of fines and stoppage of work.
He, of course, wants smaller government. He knows that he already works for the Government Boss one-third of his time, from January 1 until late April (“tax freedom day”). His freedom to hunt in the evenings and weekends is eroded by government spending (a.k.a. vote-buying) with its inflation (a.k.a. theft of his assets). He knows that his kids and grandkids won’t be able to hunt if he hands down to them trillions of dollars of debt to bail out his generation’s bad habits.
He’s happy to be forced to work for himself and his family, but not for the able-bodied guy or gal down the street living off of his labor. Maybe he’s aware too that Social Security is a near-bankrupt Ponzi scheme, whereby his kids support the childless couple down the road, in their old age – you know, the ones who despise him as a “deplorable.”
I want to say that the working man’s outlook is also the outlook of Thomas Aquinas. The motto of that trucker’s hat, after all, is taken from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, its opening line, in effect: “all men are born to hunt (for truth).” After which the central question of both Aristotelian and Thomistic ethics becomes: when we clear the deck of “forced” work (a.k.a. “business”), what do we use our leisure for?
And this is also the question of human liberty, tied inextricably to the question of religious liberty, as Joseph Pieper reminded us. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye sang that once he became rich, he’d spend his time debating questions of the Law. Calvin said that even while you are poor, study Scripture on Sundays. Catholics should say: for some part of each day, and on Sunday each week, honor the Lord, spend time with family and friends, enjoy recreation, and do acts of almsgiving.
Yet leisure is social for the human person, centered around the family as the basic cell of society. If the mother of small children has no practical option to stay at home with them, if she wishes, then she and they have no leisure; if the parents have no practical option of educating their children in the faith, then their leisure is subverted. Both circumstances are contrary to what the families live for.
Enter Sohrab Ahmari who recently wrote a piece in Time magazine complaining that the Republican Party will never become the party of the working class. What he means is that it will never adopt his own ideas of what it means to advocate for “workers.” Maybe his recent book, Tyranny, Inc., helps to explain why.
Read the full review here.
A second review is here.