Politics as the authoritative "prioritizing" of values

A Canadian (but not Canada) morally defines wartime penicillin

There is a broad academic consensus as to the best way to differentiate political bargaining from economic bargaining.

That consensus says that "prices" are used to come to an informal economic agreement as to the allocating of scarce resources between alternative uses.

But politics authoritatively allocates (rations/triages) scarce resources between alternative uses.


Politics does formally what economics does informally : it passes a laws that directs that the allocating will be done by fiat and force, if need be.

But this consensus explanation merely says how the two different forms of allocation will be done.

(Either by voluntary agreement as to how one chooses to spend one's own money, or by resources being allocated at the point of a government gun if need be.)

If does not say why the government has made its allocation decisions it has made.

(We already know that Economics has made its bargains based on the differing economic values the various differing players assign to various differing goods and services.)

So normally, the consensus view has to add that politics has made its decisions and bargains based on values.

This hardly settles much : I believe it needs to be said that the political values in question are ALL moral values - albeit often expressed in terms of economic values.

And it almost goes without saying that in the political bargaining process, various bodies of political players place differing weight on different moral values and that these bodies of political players have quite different political bargaining power.

Some are large in number but have little wealth, valuable skills or organizing cohesion.

Others are very small in number, but are very wealthy, articulate, skilled in influencing governments/public opinion, and are very united in their position vis vis certain valued vales.

Most bodies of political voters fall somewhere in the middle of these positions and in fact their political bargaining strength varies widely over time and over various issues.

In addition, all these bodies agree - albeit reluctantly - they they need the others, if society and the economy are going to keep on working : thus their bargaining positions are not absolute but will settle  - if need be - for half a loaf.

This is why I say the real hard bargaining in politics occurs over the priority we as collections of political bodies give to different moral values.

Politics is always and only about winning over 'Hearts and Minds'.

And in an earlier post, I suggested why such hard political bargaining gets more - not less - intense during times of Total War.

So, to recap that earlier blog post, some of us value very highly the giving of scarce penicillin to paratroopers with a case of the Clap, so they can go back 'on strength' in two days and possibly die in the next big battle, so our own son won't have to be 'called up' in their place.

Others of us feel that a severely wounded and infected soldier who has already fought bravely in battle is more worthy of the scarce penicillin than some paratrooper deliberately cheating on his wife without a condom in some Naples brothel, hoping thus to avoid dying in an upcoming battle by being in hospital for two months with the traditional VD treatment.

We value this severely wounded hero's contribution greatly and admit we had made a tacit bargain with him to say we stay-at-homes would give him the best possible medical care if he should be wounded while defending us stay-at-homes somewhere overseas.

So we feel we must honour that bargain, despite the fact that even if our severely wounded hero is cured of his infection and lives, he will be quickly released from the army and given a small pension for life (paid for by us staying safely at home), as he will remain too permanently injured to be a good soldier or even a good factory worker.

This in a nutshell and without a lick of exaggeration , was the moral values that the Allied world debated over in the summer of 1943 - at first, solely among the well-to-do fat old men running the war and then later - post Baby Patricia - among the entire Allied population.

As the moral value of wartime penicillin went, so went Modernity - and post Modernity

In the end, it was Henry Dawson, Robert Pulvertaft, Rudy Schullinger and Dante Colitti 's chivalrous values that were prioritized, not the modern values of Winston Churchill, Howard Florey, Alfred Richards and Lewis Weeds.

And in doing so, our world quietly slipped out of the Age of Modernity and into the post Modernity Age....

CDN CRUDE -PENICILLIN 1943

During World War II, from July 1944 till 1946, the Canadian Army in Europe produced an ordinary-soldier-oriented newspaper called The Maple Leaf.

Sort of a pale version of the American Stars and Stripes.

Its June 29th 1945 edition has an interesting story datelined Vancouver and entitled "PENICILLIN GROWN IN ITALY'S FIELDS".

Newly demobbed Private Donald MacRae, working in a BC logging camp as the first aid medic, is now free to tell an interesting operatic science tale that the highly dignified medical scientists had kept under cover till then.

It was March 1944 before penicillin was flowing freely through conventional channels to the Canadian military in Italy.

(Thank you Pfizer !)

Till then, the Canadian doctors in some hospitals grew unofficial penicillin from spores sent to them from Cairo - ie from Robert Pulvertaft - one of my heroes in the whole penicillin saga.

Nice to know a few lives were saved or helped by this effort.

The instructions certainly sound like Pulvertaft's style - cut a lot of unpeeled potatoes in two, throw in a bucket of warm water with the top exposed to airborne microbes, leave out and about.

Twenty four hours later, put the potatoes in a stew and enjoy.

But the water they soaked in, with the addition of a few mineral salts, was now just about perfect to grow a good brew of yellow penicillin juice in about 6 days, if kept in a cool dank basement.

Call it the poor man's corn steep liquor --- !!!!

(If keeping the potatoes from spoiling before reaching Italy was a priority, we can assume these potatoes might have come from Prince Edward Island via a Halifax convoy.)

A chemist could grow old and die before they figured out why the mold preferred this rather foul smelling mess rather than their pure and expensive 'defined mediums' with added amino acids.

But an ecologist- or a housewife - could explain it in an instant.

Basically the potatoes were being deliberately put on the road to spoiling and rotting for 24 hours before being cooked and eaten.

For millions of years the fungi had adopted themselves to eating half rotted food - not simple amino acids nor complex proteins either - but rather half digested proteins etc.

Sloppy Seconds, as it were.

Andy Moyer knew what he was about when he told all visiting British researchers that they needn't think the NRRL's farm surplus corn steep liquor was the only thing that would make penicillium grow penicillin - almost any complex dirty -and dirt cheap- farm cast off might work.

"Go look about at what the British breweries throw out, " he said.

POWs and civilian prisoners have always known that potatoes make great contraband brew - now we see it saves lives too !

#3 in an occasional series of articles about morally resolute individuals and food and unofficial penicillin uniting to save lives when the medical establishment, governments and drug companies fell flat.

(#1 Duhig,unofficial penicillin and Vegamite saves lives in Brisbane.)

(#2 Dawson, unofficial penicillin and Jack Frost brown sugar save lives in New York.)