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Coerced public transportation calls an image of ants scurrying around, directed not by their own personal wills, but by the demands of the collective.

Not surprisingly, in his novel, "The Once and Future King," the basis for the musical play and film "Camelot" and the Disney animated production "The Sword in the Stone," Theodore White has "Wart," the name by which the foundling Arthur is known, turn into various creatures in order to gain perspective on the human condition. One of the more chilling transformations, and one that did not make the cut to the Disney film, was to an ant, to White, the symbol of the perfect collectivist totalitarian society. Plastered along the tunnels in the ant hill were posters that read, "Whatever is not forbidden is compulsory."

This attitude has been prevalent in Europe for many centuries - as witness the orientation of the Code Napoleon that a suspect is guilty until proven innocent, and that a citizen may not undertake a particular act unless the law specifically allows that act. (In the United States, if the law is silent, the act is presumed lawful, or at least not illegal.) Strangely enough, however, this attitude has also begun infecting Americans. If an act is desirable, people should be forced to do it; if undesirable, a law should be passed prohibiting that act.

This is directly contrary to the society described by Alexis de Tocqueville in his monumental, "Democracy in America." The French commentator, comparing America to his native land - and by which France frequently suffered by the comparison - was extremely impressed with the fact that "in America, the government seems hardly to rule at all." Instead, when something needed to be done, Americans would organize and join together of their own free will and on their own initiative, form temporary or permanent associations, and get to work.

The problem today is that many Americans feel helpless to effect change in their own social conditions or in the surrounding culture. Partly this is due to the increasing alienation forced on the human person by advancing technology - it's never quite as satisfying to accomplish a task by pushing a button as it is by doing the work one's self - but this is itself a symptom of the most serious problem America and the world face: lack of widespread ownership of the means of production. Far too many people push buttons for the benefit of other people, and consequently feel no connection to other people or to society itself.

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