Captital Letters: Theaters of Operation

In which our man in Washington encounters show business, Beltway-style, rides uncomfortably into the sunset, and observes "the work of the American people."

Michael W. Lynch from the December 1998 issue

(Page 3 of 5)

Although this seemed to be a general feeling among the locals in our group, the Friday morning presentation by Montana rancher John Flynn provided some precision to these inchoate sentiments. Flynn, who is profiled in a book co-authored by Terry Anderson called Enviro-Capitalists, is a Montana native who works days as the Broadwater County Attorney. He is also a novelist, having published Montana Pursuit, and a lover of Mon-tana's natural emptiness. Flynn also runs a ranch. To stay afloat, Flynn has diversified his activities. His ranch no longer exclusively raises beef. It also provides a hunting refuge, cattle drives for well-heeled Americans and foreigners who pay to do the work of the West, and, believe it or not, a Tom Sawyer product, where these same people actually pay to work on his ranch all day. Not bad. That's exactly the creativity that we expect from Americans.

This would seem to make Flynn an enviro-capitalist, if that word can be parsed to mean a person who is making some dough selling environmental amenities or experiences at the same time he works to conserve them. And at a conference that is celebrating "free market environmentalism," Flynn is a good choice of speaker. But Flynn rejects the label. He is not driven not by either environmentalism or capitalism, although he appears to have an appreciation of both. Rather, he is driven by a deep desire to preserve his form of life, working ranches, which he sees disappearing in Montana under the twin forces of free trade and ranchet-building transplants.

The ranching way of life-living off the land, turning grass into money (the cow, according to Flynn and other ranchers, is just the middle man)-is becoming unsustainable in parts of Montana. A combination of low commodity prices and high demand for scenic rural living, if only for a few months a year, provides ranchers with a sell option that's tough to refuse. An acre of high-mountain range, according to Flynn, can produce an annual beef-based profit of $75 at today's prices. Yet "flatlanders" are eager to buy this land for up to $3,000 an acre. (I know I'm mixing a stock and a flow variable, but this is how he presented it. And he is well positioned to know if there's a spread.)

These newcomers aren't interested in working the land. Most want ranchets-a few prime acres, around which they will build a fence. In doing so they have bid up the price of land so that no working ranch in Montana will ever be able to add another acre, according to Flynn.

Flynn's story is compelling and in his raw genuineness, he pulls one quickly to his side. But it struck me that his story is fundamentally at odds with the free market philosophy that is supposedly celebrated by the day's sponsors. Free markets are about change, the old giving way to the new, today's new becoming to-morrow's old, and the cycle relentlessly churning on. That an acre that will only produce $75 is valued by some at $3,000 is the market's way of telling the rancher to get a new line of work. It's painful and disruptive. It frustrates expectations, forces change, disrupts communities, and many other undesirable things. It is also what has made us a wealthy nation.

* * *

We just had a mini-blowup. It was probably inevitable, given the disparate folks who are assembled. One woman, who to this day remains inspired by Paul Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb, expressed concern that members of our group weren't sufficiently spiritual in their environmentalism. She was so upset after the morning's discussion and its talk of markets that she had to take a two-hour hike to commune with nature just to restore her equilibrium. (Your humble correspondent, if you must know, used this recreation time to sit on the porch and smoke a cigar while typing on my laptop.) But even this proved disconcerting, as she encountered a private property sign on the hike. "I don't see too many signs that say, Please Trespass," she said in an attempt to make some larger point about the downsides of the free market.

After this outburst, a few participants felt the need to articulate their devotion to nature, adding the market is simply a means to the end of environmental bliss. There were complaints about Disneyland and malls. Not covering the environment, I had remained silent, satisfying my needs with a single witticism, but offering no full-throated articulation of my view. But I feel compelled now to go on record.

Environmental amenities-hiking, fishing, looking at trees-are just one of a number of things for which I find the great outdoors useful. Sure, I like to wake up in fresh mountain air. Who wouldn't, so long as a shower is nearby and food not far away? But I also love the smell of diesel fuel, its exhaust once combusted, and the sight of scrapers, front-end loaders, and bulldozers hard at work creating comfort for humans. Give me a backhoe digging deep into the earth. Hand me a chainsaw, I'll clear the trees. While an old tree is something to look at for a few minutes, perhaps photograph my lovely wife beside, what really commands my attention is industrial structures, especially those that have slipped into retirement: old factories and deserted warehouses. I'll trade a tree for an old steam locomotive on which to climb or a rusting truck chassis to examine any day. It's fine to commune with nature, take a walk in the woods, and wallow in the wonderful outdoors. But I also like Brooklyn, where factories are found among apartments and houses, or San Francisco's China Basin, where one can enjoy a Bloody Mary brunch amid working shipyards.

Perhaps I'm a little off center. But that's why I don't write much on the environment.

* * *

After a Saturday morning of deep discussion of water markets, it was recreation time. I decided to suck it up, saddle up, and head out on a guided horseback ride. Given my history with horses-I was nearly bucked off on one occasion-I requested the laziest, most even-tempered beast they had. Instead, they gave me the hungriest.

Heading out of the Lone Mountain Ranch, I was bringing up the rear. The tour for everyone else was experienced on a walking horse, head-to-butt, five in a line. I wasn't so lucky. My horse felt the need to stop and eat every few steps, which caused the horse and me to fall behind. The horse, whose name I made it a point not to learn, obliged by trotting to catch up. Trotting is one of those activities that I would rather look at than experience with any frequency or for any duration. For a skilled equestrian, I am sure that it is pleasurable and easy. But for your humble correspondent, it is back-jarring, butt-bouncing and ball-smashing.

This cycle continued for an hour and a half. As the others walked ponderously along, we stopped every time my horse found its mouth empty of grass. I would cuss it and pull on the reins, being instructed that the latter would prevent its grazing. It didn't. After eating its fill, it would trot to catch up to the walking others, only to commence grazing again upon reaching the pack.

As we headed through the hills, I kept longing for a motorcycle.

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