We don't choose to be ruled. We choose to be governed. Barry Goldwater, 1964 The tribal notion of “the common good” has served as the moral justification of most social systems—and of all tyrannies—in history. The degree of a society’s enslavement or freedom corresponded to the degree to which that tribal slogan was invoked or ignored. “The common good” (or “the public interest”) is an undefined and undefinable concept: there is no such entity as “the tribe” or “the public”;