The puzzling thing for anyone outside America is the conservatism and docility of the American working people. In France, their confrères are off on their five-week paid vacations; in Canada, they have brought a straight-out Socialist party back into a position of influence, because they cling stubbornly to their right to free national health care. In America, though, we are all remarkably inclined to take it on the chin and keep pedalling. The old explanation of this was, essentially, the bicycle-messenger compact: n exchange for hard work and long hours, you got to pedal your own bicycle to a better life. But over the past twenty-five years that compact has been dissolving. Maybe we are having more feudal moments because American life is becoming more feudal. An open, mercantile society is a society run on the bargain of future prospects: in exchange for your subservient labor, we will provide hope. A feudal society is, simply, a society run on the bargain of fear: in exchange for your labor and subservience, we will provide security.