Alexander Volokh is a 1993 alumnus.
By Alexander Volokh
In "The Simpsons", Homer carries on an instructive conversation
with his brain.
Homer: Awww … $20!? I wanted a peanut.
Homer’s brain: $20 can buy many peanuts!
Homer: Explain how.
Homer’s brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and
services!
Homer: Woo hoo!
There is great truth embodied in this exchange, a wisdom at odds
with the view expressed in Chris Miller’s "Money makes America go
round, not values" (Daily Bruin, Sept. 27). According to Miller,
"values in America have evolved. The biggest concern in America is
no longer political or religious freedom. The value that Americans
have placed above all else is the freedom to make a dollar."
I don’t know what is the Edenic American prehistory that Miller
says our values have evolved away from. Personally, I doubt that
there ever was a time when most Americans valued political or
religious freedom higher than economic freedom. But I do know the
lesson taught by Homer’s brain  America is not driven by the
desire to make a dollar.
The Beatles may have put it more succinctly when they said, in a
somewhat different context, "You never give me your money; you only
give me your funny paper." Money is useless; it makes bad wallpaper
and brief fires, and the novelty of fondling it wears off quickly.
The only reason anyone wants money is so they can exchange it for
things they want that other people own.
Today, as always, people want money to buy food, clothing and
shelter; to put themselves or their children through school; to buy
books or CDs or movie tickets or stereo equipment; to travel to
Scotland to drink a freshly drawn Guinness Stout; to start up a
frozen yogurt shop in Westwood; or, in the case of Homer Simpson,
to purchase a lowly peanut. All of these are, in the end,
non-economic values. I leave it to the reader to determine whether
they are materialistic; my own view is that attempts to distinguish
between "good," ethereal values and "bad," corporeal values are in
the end arbitrary. There are no economic values. All values are
personal, subjective and non-economic.
I do not, of course, advocate the mindless pursuit of cash. But
I draw a distinction between the pursuit of cash and the right to
pursue cash.
I do not advocate that people be Communists or Nazis, believe in
the Jewish God or the Muslim God, like the chicken dance or the
electric slide. (I have, at times, found solace in the Macarena.)
But a free society requires that all these be allowed, and neither
encouraged nor discouraged by government. And respect for the
individual requires that we recognize that all these choices stem
from personal preferences and should be valued because they are
chosen by people who have the right to choose.
We would do well to learn from the Beatles, and from Homer’s
brain. Chris Miller may not like "The Simpsons"; he certainly
doesn’t like "Beavis and Butthead", and cites its success as a
prime example of why we should distrust public tastes and replace
them, presumably, with his own.
As for me and my house, I like "The Simpsons" Â probably
more than a lot of art financed by the National Endowment for the
Arts  and I find "Beavis and Butthead" to be cool. Heh-heh.
If future generations remember the ’90s by those phenomena alone, I
would not be embarrassed (Now "Ren and Stimpy" is a whole other
story). Not only do I find them good art, but I think there is
something nobler about them than there is about NEA-funded art,
which relies on involuntary, coerced contributions from people who
may have better things to do with their money.
Miller believes that "something is wrong with America" and warns
that "this great democratic social experiment will not work" unless
we realize that "earning more money cannot be the highest value."
But money doesn’t make America go round. It never did.
Money is only a pleasant by-product of what really makes America
go round, which is people’s ability to fulfill their own wants and
to do what they please with their own resources without having a
czar or elite nagging them to acquire better desires.
That’s what the American experiment is truly based on, and I
will take it over Miller’s utopia any day.