There are no forced community cornerstones in a free society
I once read a post on X (back when I had X) that claimed, from education policy scholar David DeMatthews, “public schools are community cornerstones.”
In a free society, anything can be a community cornerstone. Heck, even in communities with public schools, and mine has a few, the schools themselves aren’t always preferred cornerstones. In fact, something else is. Something better: the local gym.
I can name you a laundry list of reasons why I love going to the gym every single day. You read that right. Every single day, or at least until the weather completely breaks and I’m heading to the trail to run, walk, and gaze at scenery—it’s one of my 2026 New Year’s Resolutions.
The best reason? That gym’s a community cornerstone, and nobody forced it to be that way. It’s the magic of free markets in a small community: the public school “cornerstone” forced on us isn’t the only game in town. Far from it. And the gym I go outlasts and outplays it.
And before you ask, no, it’s not a three-story community center complete with a pool, a sauna, and other amenities. It’s a place with free weights, about 10 power racks, and a back room for functional training.
But you know what? I’ve been in there at four in the morning, and I’ve been in there at midnight. The common denominator? It’s packed with familiar faces, regardless of what time it is.
The takeaway? We don’t need governments to decide for us
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of sitting in a public school for 14 years, you probably heard something like this: Free market bad! We need government to save markets from themselves.
Of course, if you go onto any Marxist forum, you’ll find out quickly that while these cats label markets and capitalism “destructive,” what they’re pointing toward is something related to mercantilism—which a lot of people mistake as capitalism.
Enjoying this article? Catch the rest of it at The Rogue Scribe, where I write about what capitalism really is — not mercantilism — real-life motivations behind my fiction, serialized and short fiction, and personal confessionals.
