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are their own mechanics, and they are constantly experimenting to find a competitive edge. Some are tight-lipped about their discoveries, others open. As Tommy and I wandered through the paddocks, we came across Eric Cooke, who at that time had recently held the number-one ranking in a certain class on his Honda CB350, and happened to live in Richmond. He was very generous with his track-won wisdom. The word among Richmond mechanics was that Eric, working with the Jedi knight of CB350 cylinder head gurus (whose name nobody seemed to know), had built a motor that dynoed at fifty horsepower, which is about twice the stock figure. As we talked, his race was called. Going to bump-start the bike, he found that the breather canister (actually, an empty plastic water bottle) had come loose from the frame. He was all suited, helmeted, and gloved up, so more or less helpless in this moment of panic. In an impressive display of quick thinking and decisive action, Tommy grabbed a nearby can of safety wire and a pair of pliers, and quickly wired the breather to the frame; Eric made the start.

Concluding Remarks on Solidarity and Self-Reliance

1 Murray, Real Education, p. 132.

2 I owe this insight to Joseph E. Davis (personal communication).

3 I owe this formulation about the lonely character of autonomy to a lecture on Dante’s Inferno given by Anthony Esolen at the University of Virginia on November 5, 2008.

4 This error is facilitated by the legal principle of corporate “personhood.” The principle was established in the 1880s, in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 398 (1186), where corporations were proclaimed to be “legal persons” entitled to full protection of the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result, much progressive economic legislation was ruled unconstitutional because it violated an “individual’s” (that is, corporation’s) liberty of contract. I would like to thank Richard Brake for this history.

Index

absentee capitalism

abstract labor

abstracts, writing of

academia

agency

displaced

agriculture

air traffic controllers

algorithms

Anaxagoras

Anderson, Brad

animals

anti-modernism

Apple

Appleton, Josie

apprenticeship

author’s attempt at

Arendt, Hannah

aristocracy

and solidarity

v. universalism

Aristophanes

Aristotle

art(s)

liberal

servile

stochastic

artificial intelligence

artisans

Arts and Crafts movement

Aschwanden, Jim

assembly line

attentiveness

authority

exercised through command v. sensitive speech

rational v. manipulative

automobiles:

computerized diagnostics and

concealed engines in

customization of

driving sideways in

manufacture of

repair of

autonomy

banks and community

Barber, Benjamin

Bell, Daniel

Berg, Ivar

Berry, Wendell

Best Buy

Betty Crocker

birds

Blinder, Alan

blue-collar work

degradation of

Borgmann, Albert

Bower, Bruce

Brake, Richard

Braverman, Harry

Brewer, Talbot

Brown, Phillip

Buggy House

Build-a-Bear

Calhoun, Craig

capitalism

carpenters

centralization of thinking

Chase, W. G.

chess

chimpanzees

choice

circumspection

Clouds (Aristophanes)

Coetzee, J. M.

college

community

and empty credentialism

and its signaling function

as training for the office

Collins, Randall

Comaneci, Nadia

Coming of Post-Industrial Society, The (Bell)

Committee on Social Thought

common wealth

commune, author’s childhood in

community

and responsibility

of use and of making/fixing

community colleges

compensation, wages as

computerized diagnostics

computers

human minds compared with

interfaces of

construction work

consumers

craftsmanship and

debt of

consumption engineers

Conte, Jeffrey M.

Cooke, Eric

Copernicus

corporate culture

corporate personhood

corporations

Cousins, Fred

Cox, Kyle

craftsmanship

Arts and Crafts movement and

consumerism and

standards of

creative economy

creativity

crews v. teams

cubicle life

Culture of the New Capitalism, The (Sennett)

curiosity v. circumspection

Darwinism

Davis, Joseph E.

debt

Deep Blue

degradation of work

in blue-collar jobs