You're a sensible sort, and well-meaning besides. You like to make up your mind about each issue, instead of blindly signing up for the liberal agenda, the right-wing conspiracy, or the libertarian...those people ought to pick something. But anyway you're not an attorney or a mindless enemy of change. Naturally, you support tort reform.

But before you send this country to hell with your noble intentions, before the streets are slick with the blood of the innocent and the guilty, stop to consider the essential social role that improbably large jury awards serve in maintaining our American Way of Life.

The American Dream has always rested on the twin towers of personal freedom and economic opportunity. With John Ashcroft, the Patriot Act, and the complicity of a nation that lines up to remove its shoes before boarding an airplane combining to undermine civil liberty, the weight of our dream now balances precariously on the spire of economic opportunity.

From JP Morgan to Horatio Alger to Bill Gates to Amway (why yes, that *is* short for "American way") our remaining myth is the promise that anyone can "make it." Anyone, if hardworking and virtuous enough (or
virtuous and lucky enough) can rise above their circumstances to achieve "prosperity." By this we mean staggering wealth, that irresistible contradiction of safety and freedom. That is our remaining beacon to the outside world, and to the outsiders within our borders. That is the reason unprecedented freedom of speech coexists peacefully with a disparity of wealth ten times greater than the one that separated Louis XIV from Pierre the Nobody. Tracy Chapman may be talkin' 'bout a revolution, but honey, no one else is. A passable living standard for most, and the reassurance that anyone might make it, means our yawning--and widening--income gap is tolerated. Celebrated. To our credit, we're a nation of optimists.

And not without reason. Even if you are entirely unexceptional, if you have the good fortune to start out somewhere near the middle of the pack or better, you'll probably do ok. You might even do a lot better than ok. You'll spend more hours at work than people in just about any other country, but you'll be able to support your kids and you'll have lots of stuff and you'll be ok. And that's a Really Good Thing.

Even a 3-year recession and jobless recovery don't change this basic truth. And now there are signs that the recovery is generating jobs. Soon there will be opportunity for everyone, right? No.

The sad fact is that those who rise from appalling circumstance to conquer their economic and social landscapes are--in every sense of the word--exceptional. And recovery or not, the unexceptional are in for a rough go of it.

If you're 5 years from retirement and your portfolio is down by 80%, no amount of saving is going to save you.

If you spent 25 years in a rust belt job before getting laid off with 10,000 of your neighbors, no amount of retraining will turn you into a software engineer.

If you endured 12 years of inner city schools and can't read past 5th grade level, a job at Popeye's Chicken is not your first rung on the ladder to fast food plutocracy.

Maintaining the myth of unlimited opportunity for the unfortunate unexceptional is essential to maintaining the peace. It requires many rationalizations, and a few spectacular examples widely publicized:

• The obscure toiler transformed to hero by a moment of courage, a stroke of outrageous fortune, and a book deal
• The career janitor with a million-dollar lottery ticket
• The high school senior who inks his NBA and Nike contracts on the same day
• For a brief period, the Internet millionaire
• And yes, the winner of the product liability sweepstakes

Think of it as bread and circus rolled into one.

How important are these symbols? A lot more important now that the legitimate systems have failed so spectacularly to pay dividends.

Employee share ownership and mutual funds were supposed to generously reward everyone who worked, if not equally then at least equitably. And it looked great on paper.

But company shares are not companies, they are commodities. And the first lesson a commodities trader learns is that success is based on asymmetrical information--knowing more than the guy you're trading with. Otherwise you're just rolling the dice.

And wouldn't you know it, an assembly line riveter, a product manager, even an accounts receivable clerk can't know more about the state of a firm than the handful who run it. Especially when the rewards available
to the top few provide an irresistible temptation to fiddle, fudge or just plain cheat.

Which brings us to tort reform. Don't let your good nature and rational, issue-by-issue approach distract you from the big picture. The American Dream is flat on its back. Before you legislate away the jury jackpot,   remember that it's powerful medicine indeed.

If we push another dose of Jessica Lynch, mainline 150 million in Superlotto winnings, roll up the cash cart and charge the paddles of product liability and personal injury, we just might keep it from dying on the table. And that would be a Very Good Thing.