You would think, if you listened to right-wing talk radio, that the possibility of US energy independence was an exemplar of the wonderful ways of liberty and free enterprise. Think again. Fracking as a technology was conceived in the I970s, at a time of the oil crisis, and was for many years a government research project, now taken over by private companies. Without the heavy lifting of government scientists and Federal money, it would have gone nowhere. As we know, the real truth is that private investors will never take a long-term view – they want immediate results. But when something like fracking is successful, lo and behold, it is all the result of the free market!

Without government action a lot of the good things about modern life would never have happened. Epicurus, were he around today, would quite likely tell us that paying your taxes and encouraging government investment is like joining a mass joint venture. Together, as tax payers we are investing big money in the future in ways that a private enterprise, even the largest, cannot do. Working together over the long term, rather than selfishly as individuals, is very Epicurean. The constant harping on “big government” is short-sighted. What we have to do as citizens is to make sure that government is focused on public good, not bogged down in bureaucracy. The public is disillusioned with the greed and self-interest of the corporatocracy. The politicians in the pockets of non-tax-paying big business rightly got a drubbing in the recent US elections.

Up good government!