University of Virginia Library

Free Enterprise Needs 'Lazy Louts'

Most historians now pin the
blame for the Great American
Revolution on, of all people,
Martha Mitchell.

It was Mrs. Mitchell's misguided
efforts to drum up support for the
President's New Economic Plan
that lit the fuse-specifically the
public proclamation, she issued in
the fall of 1971:

"Get out and spend your money
and enjoy yourself," she told a
waiting nation as she patriotically
went out to buy herself eight new
dresses from a New York couturier.

It was these words, which now
rank with "Let them eat cake,"
that fanned the flames. Yet the
revolution that followed was led
neither by outraged husbands nor
incensed poor people as one might
expect.

It was led, instead, by hippies.

What is even odder is that the
hippies weren't appalled one whit
by Mrs. Mitchell's message. As a
matter of fact, they were
intrigued. "We have explored all
the myriad methods of enjoying
ourselves save one," said the great
hippie guru, Irwin Maharishi (nee
Plock), casting an I Ching over his
shoulder with one hand tied behind
his back. "Let us try spending
money."

Hippie Grapevine

Through the mysterious hippie
grapevine that spreads hippie fads
overnight, the words of the
Maharishi swept through the
nation's communes. They were
eagerly received. For after a decade
of macrobiotic diets, free love and
metaphysical contemplation, most
hippies were hungry, tired and
bored.

Belchfire Eight

"Think of sitting behind the
wheel of a 400-horsepower,
chromium-plated, 72 Belchfire
Eight," cried a typical member of
the Mao Tse Vanderbilt Commune,
his eyes lighting up. "Man, what a
turn-on."

So it was that across the nation
a million hippies filtered out of
their communes and back into
society, determined to spend
money. Their only problem was
they didn't have any.

There was but one alternative.
"We must," said the Maharishi
with a cosmic sigh of despair, "go
to work."

Thus the male hippies shaved
their beards, the female hippies
shaved their legs, and they all got
square haircuts, square clothes and
square outlooks. And out they
marched to find work.

No one was more pleased than
Mrs. Mitchell. "Isn't it marvelous,"
she said, "that our marvelous
President's marvelous economic
plan has caused even these horrible
lazy worthless louts to go out and
seek honest jobs?"

But, unfortunately, of course,
there weren't any.

Indeed, with unemployment
already over 6 per cent, the one
thing the country didn't need was
another million job seekers.

"These rotten hippies are trying
to take the jobs of honest working
men!" cried the labor leaders.
Unemployment figures soared.
Stocks plummeted. Breadlines
lengthened, chaos ruled. And the
frustrated hippies launched a
revolution.

The nation was saved when the
Maharishi suddenly discovered
that navel contemplating could be
fun, as long as the navel you
contemplated belonged to a
member of the opposite sex. So the
hippies retired again to their
communes and peace uneasily
returned.

But the revolution was not
without its benefits. For the first
time, the nation realized that the
very existence of the competitive
American free enterprise system
depends on having a bunch of lazy,
worthless louts around who have
rejected riches, success and honest
toil.

Ever since them, hippies have
been revered.