The picture above, depicting what some might want to believe were the normal and everyday activities of film critic and journalist Rex Reed, appeared in the Saturday-Sunday, May 16-17, 2026, edition of The Wall Street Journal. Reed died on May 12th of this year, and this picture was employed to head up a column by Peggy Noonan, onetime speechwriter for president Ronald Reagan.
Noonan's column, a tribute to Reed, was titled, "Rex Reed And The Legacy Of American Openness." Her column celebrated the fact that Reed was "a self-made figure in show business, a nobody who became a somebody in a competitive field."
The aim of Noonan's column, though, was not really to celebrate Reed's career as an example of something extraordinary. The column argues, using Reed's life as an example, that the kind of success he enjoyed - going from "nobody" to "somebody" - is, actually, typical, and is what makes America great:
You can think, within two seconds, of stories of nobodies who became somebodies. In business you can go from before Andrew Carnegie to after Steve Jobs. Beyond business you’ll think: Lincoln in the dirt-floor log cabin becomes president, Oprah Winfrey of rural Mississippi hardship invents a media empire. You could think of Yip Harburg of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, whose father worked in a sweatshop and who went on to write “Over the Rainbow” and “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” and became a reigning Broadway presence. Jay-Z, from public housing in Brooklyn, became a cultural powerhouse, and a wealthy man.
The wide-openness of the system in which they rose has always distinguished America—it’s part of our mythos, our ethos, our style. And it’s no accident.
"Mythos" is a fancy way of saying "myth," and I believe that there are lots of people who would argue that Reed's experience is emphatically not typical of the reality of American life, and particularly not typical of the reality of the nation's "economic" life - and certainly not today. Noonan wants to use Reed's story as a way to praise "capitalism." However, having recently read Palo Alto, by Malcolm Harris, I am somewhat less convinced that "capitalism" is the bullseye to aim for, as we consider how to organize our society. The full title of Harris' book is this: Palo Alto: A History Of California, Capitalism, And The World. In that book, "capitalism" comes across as the villain, not the hero.
I think it is worth giving Noonan's argument a fair hearing, however. The "openness" she celebrates (economic and otherwise) is, in fact - at least in my mind - something that does deserve praise. And I agree with Noonan that the United States has been somewhat "open" to people with good ideas, a commitment to hard work (and a little luck, quite often). My own father's life, I think, exemplifies the story that Noonan wants to tell.
The way Noonan pitches the story, "capitalism" is the reason for the "openness" that has allowed various "nobodies" to become "somebodies" in our society:
Private property, the rule of law—in the American system common people could make binding agreements, own property, open businesses. You didn’t have to be fancy to own something. Bankruptcy laws helped, by making failure survivable. You fail and try again without being destroyed. None of it is perfect, it was never perfect. Other systems have geniuses too, but America like no country before it offered its geniuses a stage and a chance to star in the show. State socialism has always been constrictive, heavy, static.
What Noonan describes, in my mind, however praiseworthy, is not "capitalism." "Capitalism" would like to claim such benefits as "the rule of law," but that isn't "capitalism." That's the "rule of law." What Noonan leaves out (and a Ronald Reagan Republican could be expected to leave this out) is the idea that our system of government allows ordinary people, through "politics," to establish rules that promote openness, and that allows us to construct a society, and a "world," where the kind of "openness" that Noonan celebrates is a possibility (though never an inevitability, of course). The options are not "capitalism" versus "state socialism," as Noonan would have us believe. The options are between a government that might reflect the "ethos" of the Franklin Roosevelt presidency versus a government that reflects the self-interested "money is everything" approach of what's happening right now.
The "tech bro" billionaires are the ones who are arguing that "capitalism" is what makes America great. I don't think that's it. What has made America "great" has been the kind of community spirit manifested during the "Roosevelt years," when our government really did come across, to most ordinary Americans, as belonging to them, and as a way that we could, acting together, provide the individual support and assistance that can help we "nobodies" become "somebodies." That's still the way we can make that kind of society happen. Backing "capitalism," which elevates the power of money over everything else, isn't the way to build a road to where we want to go.
By the way, and with real appreciation for Rex Reed, I don't believe that the kind of "openness" that Noonan wants to celebrate (and that I am saying is worthy of celebration) can, or should, turn us into people who sit on the beach with a book, barfefoot, in a sportscoat and an ascot, smoking a big cigar as the tide comes in - or goes out.
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