LEZ MIZ: Capitalist Whiz Brings Better Biz [Reader Post]

Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables is a massive tome which has gained massive attention because of the blockbuster musical theatre phenomenon that is based upon it. There have been lessons and parallels aplenty drawn from this story but I have another take of my own here.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of this wonderful tale. Jean Valjean, a woodcutter, is imprisoned for stealing a piece of bread. Because of failed escapes he ends up being imprisoned for nineteen years; he reenters the world in a hell of hatred and desperation until the good Bishop of Digne ‘buys his soul’ back for him and commissions him to live for others the rest of his life. Taking a new identity, he becomes a prosperous business man in Montreuil-sur-mer and becomes a pillar of the community through his factories and private charity. Eventually, his secret identity is discovered by the maniacally legalistic public servant Javert. Javert pursues Valjean relentlessly through much of the rest of the story, but Valjean’s mystical moral depth triumphs in the end over the harsh legalism of Javert.

Hugo himself was a ‘liberal’ Bonapartist and that does come out in some places in his novel. However, I think everyone agrees that’s not really what he was pushing or talking about in his classic. Like Dostoevsky and Dickens in that time, he was making a spiritual and cultural point about our need for God in a secular age and how that affects how we treat each other.

As I was recently reading this great work, this was the thing that struck me quite hard. Jean Valjean in his first new incarnation after his escape is a CAPITALIST HERO! He comes up with a great idea. He reworks a marginal process into a truly useful one and sparks the growth of an industry. He provides jobs and prosperity for his town and the entire area. Far from being the stereotypical greedy magnate, he uses his private charity to build a non-governmental framework of community and social support. He promotes a spirit of solidarity while respecting the subsidiarity of all the small groups. The respect and trust he earns propels him into the office of mayor, where he presents us the ideal ‘public servant’ very much in the traditional American model as opposed to the controlling bureaucrat.

In stark contrast to this is the all-smothering spirit of government control personified in Javert. To Javert, it is government and law which orders all, subsumes all; government is something he BELIEVES in and worships. In one scene he turns himself over to the mayor (Valjean) for dismissal because he feels he has filed a false report on him. He as an individual is unimportant in comparison to the all-wise government regulations and bureaucratic process. If he must be sacrificed for the sake of proper functioning of the controlling rules then ‘so be it’. He is willing to do almost anything in this story as long as it serves the letter of the law and the government; the ends justify the means.

After all, the socialism of the French Revolution was a massive experiment in cultural transformation where the government entered everything, going so far as to change the calendar and attempt to produce social results. The State and Reason became the Gods that were worshipped. (These trends continued even during the short-lived Monarchist ‘restoration’.) Despite the mantra of ‘Liberty’, intrusive control became the by-product of this precursor to Marxism and Communism. Javert’s misplaced ultra-sincere idealism results in oppression and suffering whereas the practical capitalism of Valjean brings concord and community.

[Parenthetically, it should be noted that Hugo believed the overall effect of the Revolution was positive, and I don’t think he’s all wrong. However, we, having the benefit of hindsight, can see things in his own writing that maybe he could not. His brand of ‘liberalism’ perhaps has much more in common with a ‘conservative’ today than the pseudo-socialists who now use the title.]

As we now watch the spectacle of a massive government takeover without any parallel, I see the fanatical stare of Javert fixing upon us all, determined to bring justice and order to us for our own good. His certainty is alluring; he promises high ideals. Misery and ‘les miserables’ is indeed the real result. I choose to look into the warm forgiven eyes of Valjean, shining with the light of the God of agape love. If Javert tries to give me something, I know there are hooks inside. I prefer Liberty in the classical American model. I think I’ll go to Valjean. He’ll give me a job or help me start a business and he will respect my Liberty.